Cranes Today April 08

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KOBELCO CRANES
KOBELCO CRANES NORTH AMERICA INC Houston, Texas,U.S.A. Tel: 00-1-(0)-713-856-5755 Fax: 00-1-(0)-713-856-9072 jack_fendrick@kobelconet.com KOBELCO CRANES MIDDLE EAST FZE jack_fendrick@kobelconet.com Dubai, U.A.E. KOBELCO CRANES MIDDLE EAST FZE Dubai, U.A.E. Tel: 00-971-(0)-4-881-3291 okugawa_takafumi@kobelconet.com Fax: 00-971-(0)-4-881-3299 okugawa_takafumi@kobelconet.com KOBELCO CRANES Co., Ltd. TOKYO, JAPAN Tel: 00-81-(0)3-5789-2130 Fax: 00-81-(0)3-5789-3372 info@kobelconet.com intlsales_cr@kobelconet.com
KOBELCO CRANES SOUTH EAST ASIA PTE. LTD Singapore Tel: 00-65-(0)-6268-1308 Fax: 00-65-(0)-6268-2490 okadata@kobelconet.com
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KOBELCO CRANES EUROPE Ltd. FOR U.K. AND IRELAND: Tel: 00-44-(0)-1473-716-302 Fax: 00-44-(0)-1473-716-301 andrew_brown@kobelconet.com KOBELCO CRANES EUROPE Ltd. FOR MAINLAND EUROPE AND RUSSIA: Tel: 00-31-(0)-36-549-5510 Fax: 00-31-(0)-36-549-5520 jos_verhulst@kobelconet.com
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Contents
Editors view News
Deals in Australia, the USA and EuropeAccidents in the USA
05 07
ConExpo 2008
Highlights from this years big construction show, in Las Vegas
10
23
USA Global insight Homebuilders feel the crunch 400th issue
Will the sub prime crisis hit residential construction, and boom truck sales, in the US? Will Dalrymple reports.
17 23 26
The original, and still the best. Cranes Today celebrates 400 issues with some help from past editors and long term readers.
Alternative lifting Singapore flyer

26
Tight space meant the Singapore Flyer Ferris wheel had to be built upright, a challenge for engineers. Glenn Smith reports
31 35 39
Australias big wheel
Tutt Bryant used a 600t Terex-Demag CC2800-1 to assemble the Southern Star Ferris wheel in Australia. Greg Keane reports
Vanguard holds its beer Insurance Plugging gaps in safety Rigging supplement A place for everything Colour coded
Vanguard used a custom-made gantry system to install eight 8t vessels on a tight brewery site. Will North reports
Anonymous surveys of staff attitudes can help check that safety messages are getting through, Will Dalrymple reports
41
35
Derrick Bailes explains why a well-managed rigging store can help ensure lifting operations run safely Jason Sutton, at Airbus Filton, developed a colour-coded system to help track rigging gear. Will North reports
43
47 50 66
Hoist keeps form levels The Back Page
Signal-Rite hung a chain hoist below a spreader bar, to keep concrete forms level. Will Dalrymple reports
50
In our fleet: PVE, the NetherlandsLetter: In praise of EN13000 Poll: Your favourite 200t crawlerRocket powered boom truck
CRANES TODAY APRIL 2008
03
Editors view
Is demand costing lives?

With nine deaths from two tower crane climbing accidents in the USA in little more than a week, it would be easy to be sceptical of the safety claims of tower crane manufacturers. On closer examination though, it's hard to see anything wrong with the cranes themselves. In New York, the root cause of the accident seems to have been a nylon sling breaking as it lifted a tie-in collar. In other recent tower crane accidents, forgotten pins or incorrectly adjusted bolts have been identified as the cause of the accident. Prior to these physical causes, there seems to be a common human problem. Erecting and climbing tower cranes is a skilled job, and hard physical work. It takes up to four years to get someone trained to climb tower cranes safely, and there's no guarantee that in four years time they'll want to be clambering up cold, swaying, tower cranes on a rainy night. Even if they do, there might not then be the same glut of work available. Many people in the tower crane industry say that the lack of skilled labour and the current level of demand means that there just aren't enough erectors to go around. When they can be found, they have to work in grim conditions to tight deadlines. Despite their skill, it looks like these pressures might be pushing erectors into making fundamental errors. For now, there's good work being done, in the UK at least, to make lifting practice safer, but few technical or regulatory fixes available. Adopting hold points at key points in the climbing process, so a supervisor can ensure best practice has been followed, may help. However, preventing rare mistakes like this will make jobs take longer. Unless lead contractors, and their clients, are prepared to accept the time and additional costs to buy that extra degree of safety, fatal accidents will keep happening. The grim reality of risk in every industry though is that perfect safety will always be traded against the need to run a business that can make a profit. Perhaps fatalities will only fall when demand drops too.
On the cover: Cranes Today celebrates its 400th issue with a facsimile of the cover from its first edition 35 years ago. Adverts on the cover might be a thing of the past, but Cranes Today will keep on bringing you the best of whats new in the crane industry.
Editor Will Dalrymple tel: +44 (0) 208 269 7781 wdal@wilmington.co.uk Assistant editor William North tel: +44 (0) 208 269 7779 wnorth@wilmington.co.uk Journal administrator Natasha Denney tel: +44 (0) 208 269 7833 ndenney@wilmington.co.uk Journal fax: +44 (0) 208 269 7803 Correspondents Phil Bishop Heinz-Gert Kessel Greg Keane
Will North Assistant editor

wnorth@wilmington.co.uk
Group sales manager Mark Bridger tel: +44 (0) 208 269 7746 mbridger@wilmington.co.uk Senior sales international Martin McCarthy (Display sales exec Kate Hearn is on maternity leave) tel: +44 (0) 208 269 7848 mmccarthy@wilmington.co.uk Classified sales executive Kirsty Guest tel: +44 (0) 208 269 7867 kguest@wilmington.co.uk Advertising agents Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Benelux: Randolf Krings, EMC Media Tel: +49 (0)611 532 4416 Fax: +49 (0)611 532 4519 cranes@emcmedia.de Italy: Anna De Bortoli, Ediconsult Internazionale Tel: +39 02 477 100 36 Fax: +39 02 477 113 60 milano@ediconsult.com
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CRANES TODAY
APRIL 2008
05
News roundup
New York reels from collapse

CRANES FROM LOCAL RENTAL companies have picked up pieces of the fallen tower crane, as well as debris from the seven buildings damaged. Funerals for the seven people killed in the accident have been held. But New York City continues to feel the e ects of the worst crane accident to hit a developed country in many years. On March 15, a 200-ft (61m) Favelle Favco 440 tower crane collapsed after it had been climbed. Riggers were attaching a collar on the upper part of the crane's mast to tie it into the building. The collar slipped, and knocked out two collars that were tied below. Without any connections to the building, the crane toppled on top of nearby buildings on 50th Street. Reliance Construction, the main contractor on the site, issued a statement expressing sympathy with the victims and cooperation with the authorities. It added it had subcontracted work on the site, and that the crane was supplied by New York Crane. Jimmy Lomma, president of New York Crane, told Cranes Today the crane was rented to JCI (Joy Contractors Inc), of Elizabeth, New Jersey. JCI declined to comment. Reports suggest JCI subcontracted a master rigger, William Rapetti, to work on the climbing operation. Seven people are now known to have been killed in the accident, six of whom were construction workers. The last person killed, was a tourist in a nearby building that was crushed by the falling crane. After the crash, the inspector responsible for checking the crane was arrested on charges of allegedly making a false entry in his Inspectors Route Sheet. The details of the charge suggest a residents complaint about the crane may not have been properly investigated. As well as prosecuting the inspector, the city is to reinspect all cranes checked by him over the last six months. The citys Department of Investigations said it is conducting a thorough review of procedures and personnel of the Department of Buildings Cranes and Derricks Unit. On March 4, a local resident complained to the DOB, saying that the upper part of the crane did not appear to be secured or properly
Emergency workers at the aftermath of the accident
braced to the building. Marquette was sent out to check the condition of the crane, and led a report saying he had visited the site on the same day, and that the crane was erected according to DOBapproved plans. A second inspection was carried out the day before the accident, and no problems were found. The day after the accident, Marquette was interviewed by investigators, and told them that he had checked the crane and found no problems. Three days later, the investigators had found evidence that the inspection had not, in fact, taken place. In a second interview, Marquette admitted he had not conducted the March 4 inspection. DOB Commissioner Patricia J. Lancaster said, It is unlikely a March 4th inspection would have prevented this accident, which we continue to believe was caused by human or mechanical error. Regardless, Edward Marquettes behavior is reprehensible. Ten days after the accident, the city banned climbing operations in Manhattan without the presence of a building inspector. Inspectors will examine every crane before it is climbed. They will prepare a written plan of the climbing operation, and will present this to everyone involved at a meeting before the crane is climbed. Lancaster said, "While the tragic accident on March 15 was a rare occurrence, we are expanding
The three collapsed collars, which contributed to the accident
The fallen mast of the crane
Marks on the oor show where a beam was dragged through the building during the accident
A beam was sent crashing into a nearby kitchen
oversight of cranes as a precautionary measure while we await the ndings of our forensic investigation. Starting today I have ordered changes to the inspection protocol for tower cranes that will be in e ect until further notice. Any crane operating in an unsafe manner will be shut down immediately."
A second fatal accident during a tower crane climbing operation hit the US barely one week later, when a 20ft mast section, being used to climb a Liebherr tower, was dropped onto a building in Miami. Two people were killed inside the building, and four injured. The crane was working on the Paramount Bay development.
www.cranestodaymagazine.com
07
News roundup
PICK and CARRY
AUSTRALIAN TOWER CRANE RENTAL FIRM Verticon has nalised an AUD 30m (USD 32m) deal for up to 40 tower cranes from Chinese manufacturer Fushun Yongmao (branded Sun Crane), and 50 construction hoists from GJJ. Verticon managing director and CEO Andrew Torrington said that the deal was the start of a process to replace older tower cranes. The new generation of tower cranes and hoists are safer, smarter and more e cient and will bene t both our customer base and indeed the overall hire market going forward, he said. The rst shipment arrives in May 2008. Both cranes and hoists were bought from dealer Lewis Equipment in the USA. Lewis distributes Zoomlion truck cranes, all terrains and crawler cranes, Fushun Yongmao tower cranes, and GJJ construction hoists that it brands Hercules Elevators. In February Verticon signed a strategic alliance and exclusive agency agreement with Lewis, which according to Verticon operates more than 200 tower cranes in the USA. Lewis bought sister company Verticon New Zealand in December 2007. "This alliance will enable Verticon to substantially reinvest in new plant and equipment in Australia and begins a clear process of retiring older Verticon eet, particularly our Queensland-based tower cranes, and introducing brand new cranes and hoists into the Australian market over the next 24 months," Torrington said in a statement in February. "The agreement also provides access to Lewis's USA-based personnel, expertise, systemes and procedures and gives Verticon accesss to better delivery times, support and spare parts. Combined with the new Queensland workshop, yard and o ce facility due for completion in April 2008, I feel that this alliance now clearly sets the way forward for Verticon in Australia." Verticon claims to be Australia's largest tower crane rental company, with 100 cranes and 60 construction hoists. The company's eet includes models from manufacturers Comansa, Comedil, Favelle Favco, Liebherr, Potain and Fushun Yongmao.
KIRTLAND CAPITAL Partners has sold US crawler rm Essex Crane Rental Corp to Hyde Park Acquisition Corp, a publicly traded investment vehicle set up by South Africanborn investor Laurence S Levy, for $210m. Kirtland paid more than $180m for Essex, when it bought it in May 2000. Kirtland made back its investment in March 2007, through a dividend recapitalisation. In the last year, Essex achieved revenues of $64.2m, for a earnings before interest, tax, deductions and amortisation (Ebitda) of MERGERS HAVE BEEN announced by four crane companies working in Northern Europe, in two separate deals. In the Netherlands, Kranenbouw will merge with Stravers Transmate Kranen (STK). Under the deal, Kranenbouw acquired STKs entire business,
$37.2m. Since 2003, the Chicago-based rental rm has average annual revenue growth of 31%. Hyde Park was set up with an IPO in March 2007, which raised net proceeds of $99.7m. At the time, Levy promised the rm would make an acquisition in one of the infrastructure, logistics, distribution or manufacturing sectors within two years, or return investors funds. The current deal is made up of $100m in equity from Hyde Park, a $5m investment from Essex's management, a further $5m rolled over from the including cranes, workforce and premises. The deal will add 80 cranes to Kranenbouws eet, giving the combined group a eet of 160 cranes, in the 160tm400tm range. Around 40 sta will join the company from STK. In Scandinavia, Kynningsrud Crane and
existing owners, $1m from Macquarie Capital, and a $117m secured loan from a group of lenders. When the deal is complete, Hyde Park will be renamed Essex Crane Rental Corp, and will be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Essex boss Ron Schad
ORMIG S.p.A. PIAZZALE ORMIG P.O. BOX 63 - 15076 OVADA (AL) ITALY TEL. (+39) 0143.80051 r.a. FAX (+39) 0143.86568 E-mail: mktg@ormigspa.com www.ormig.com www.pickandcarry.com
Stangeland Crane have announced plans to cooperate. The second deal will see Kynningsrud Crane and Stangeland Crane create a co-owned mobile crane rental firm, Nordic Crane Group AS, with shared access to 300 cranes.
Ready for action

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Terex-Demag GmbH & Co. KG Zweibrcken, Germany 00 49 (0) 63 32 / 830 www.terex-demag.com info@terex-demag.com
Terex Corporation 2008 Terex is a registered trademark of Terex Corporation in the United States of America and many other countries
News roundup
ConExpo draws 140,000 visitors

A long, hot week in the Mohave desert translated into lots of business for crane buyers and sellers. We review the show news.
TEREX CRANES IS GEARING UP training for North American dealers. Tom Limbach, formerly Terex Cranes lean manufacturing manager, has been redeployed to manage sales training for the company's North American distribution network. "Doug Friesen wanted someone with excitement, with heartfelt belief," Limbach told Cranes Today, referring to Terex Cranes North America's vice president. "People don't care what you know until they know that you care." THE TADANO STRATEGIC PLAN scheduled to be announced in April will last three years, until 31 March 2011. It will propose a new business domain, LE, Lifting Equipment, president and chief executive o cer Koichi Tadano told Cranes Today at ConExpo. Over the previous four-year cycle, the company has increased the export ratio of mobile cranes from 30% in 2004 to 47% in its 2007 nancial year. At the same time, the mobile crane business has grown to 60% of Tadano's total business in its 2007 year. Now the company plans to promote its truck loader cranes and aerial work platform businesses to balance the mobile cranes business. "These last four years in which we have concentrated on globalising our mobile cranes, we have had a following wind from the market," Tadano says. "Our gures have been getting better, but we don't say that there has been growth, just a following wind." Tadano says that the company is planning to work on speci c geographical markets, and also expand the product range. At the show, Tadano's 90 US ton capacity GT 900 truck crane carries 20,000 lbs (9t) more counterweight than its 80 US ton older sibling, which was launched in 2002. The crane also rests on a new carrier made at Faun in Germany. The 35 US ton capacity Tadano TM-35100 boom truck mounts a new rough-terrain formed boom on a four-axle Kenworth or Sterling commercial chassis. It is the company's largest boom truck, and the manufacturer is planning to make a 4550 US ton machine. As exhibited, the crane had one axle in front and three at the back. Carrier wheels can be modi ed to suit local road regulations: a three-axle machine, The training courses draw on a lot of existing information, but the technique, style and uniformity of the training is new, Limbach said. He said that courses are currently optional, although Terex is considering making them mandatory. All Terex distributors are currently being trained as a matter of priority. Formal training programs will be rolled out to other sta by September, Limbach said. Regional sales training will take place in Waverly, Iowa and or a dual axle in front and back. The boom comes from Tadano's 25t rough terrain crane, the GR-250N, a crane launched for the Japanese export market in 2007, but not yet exported. The crane has right-hand steering for Wilmington, North Carolina. All distributor training programs will be attended by the Terex regional business manager responsible for that individual distributor. There are currently four regional business managers across North America in these newly-organised positions. Regional business managers are supposed to represent the face of Terex Cranes to distributors and their customers, and liaise internally with product managers, upper management, and the tra c and engineering departments. They report to new senior manager Dave Kuhlman. the Japan and Korea market; an export version would have lefthand steering. Tadano is planning to launch a few new mobile cranes later this year to deal with new emissions regulations in Japan.
The ConExpo gold lot from a balcony at the nearby Hilton
News roundup
THE US BASED MANITOWOC Crane Group has bought a 50% stake in Chinese mobile crane manufacturer Tai'an Dongyue Heavy Machinery. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Tai'an Dongyue employs 900 people in a new factory in Tai'an City, Shangdong Province, about 300 miles (350km) south of Chinese capital Beijing. The company was founded in 1972 and ranks beneath XCMG, Zoomlion, and arguably Terex Changjiang in mobile crane production volumes and sales. "We want to be manufacturing the closest we can to the market, and China is the fastest-growing construction market in the world," Manitowoc Crane Group president Eric Etchart told Cranes Today in an interview after the announcement was made at a Manitowoc press conference at Las Vegas's ConExpo exhibition. "China is a key market for Manitowoc. Manufacturing there is central to this objective. Through this presence we will also have a better understanding of our Chinese competitors which in turn will help us on the global stage." Etchart said that both halves of the joint venture agree on the general strategy for the company. "We are sharing a bed with them and dreaming the same dreams," he said. "Tai'an is a major player, and there is space to grow the market." The acquisition is not the rst involvement of foreign businesses in the mobile crane business, nor is it Manitowoc's rst Chinese venture. In 2006, Terex bought a 50% stake in Chinese mobile crane manufacturer Changjiang Crane. And Manitowoc subsidiary Potain bought a stake, and then purchased the remainder, of a Zhangjiagang tower crane manufacturer, and has used it to manufacture Potainbrand tower cranes. In the press conference, Etchart said: "We want to replicate the successful business model of Potain tower cranes. We invested in a Chinese company and gained signi cant market share." Etchart said that there is a lot of work to do at Tai'an. The existing line we will need to re ne, and understand it better." Manitowoc will rotate teams of employees, and also move permanent sta to China to manage the business, Etchart said. It will export experts from its Shady Grove, USA facility, which is the Manitowoc truck crane center of excellence. The recentlyappointed Manitowoc senior vice president in charge of Asia, Thomas Wang, has been named general manager of the new venture. The Chinese government limits foreign ownership of Chinese manufacturers of road-going machinery to 50%. Asked if Manitowoc would have bought the company outright if it could, Etchart told Cranes Today: "We probably would have bought it in two stages anyway. It's a learning process." The deal is a sign to Chinese manufacturers that crane manufacturing is a global business, said Yanming Xiong, Zoomlion mobile crane branch general manager, in an interview with Cranes Today at ConExpo. "It is natural for Chinese manufacturers to get investment of foreign capital."
DUTCH HEAVY LIFT FIRM Mammoet has placed Manitowoc's largest-ever order for cranes. It has ordered two 900tcapacity Manitowoc 21000 crawlers, ve 400t-capacity Manitowoc 16000s and 60 allterrain cranes ranging from two to ve axles. In Europe, Grove mobile cranes are made in factories in Wilhelmshaven, Germany and in Niela Tanaro, Italy. Two-thirds of the mobile crane order value would come from Germany, and one third from Italy. The cranes will be delivered in 2009 and 2010. Roderik van Seumeren praised Manitowoc for listening to its needs. "We felt recognised," he said. "It's a changing world, and not all suppliers feel the same. In this market you can sell cranes to all. We felt we have been put as a front-runner. We were happy to do the deal." He added that some other manufacturers sell cranes through brokers, but not Manitowoc Crane Group. He said that the company had ordered so many cranes because of the economy, which does not depend on one region. "The whole world is booming for us. The demand for energy is so huge," van Seumeren said, adding that the company currently has another two to three years' work. He said that most of the cranes would be operated from Europe. Demand for energy projects and mining are particularly strong in India, China, Brazil and Australia. Frans Vanwinkel, Manitowoc senior vice president of sales and marketing, Europe, Middle East and Africa, said that the
company had arranged the relatively short crane delivery times using a complex system. "We have a system that allocates certain types of customers certain cranes." Mammoet does not have particular jobs lined up for the cranes, Van Seumeren said. "The exibility we have at Mammoet is that at the last moment we can decide where the cranes go." The company currently owns one Manitowoc 21000, which is operating in Florida. Van Seumeren said that the company has 1,300 telescopic cranes, 350 crawler cranes and more than 900 lines of self-propelled modular trailers, with an order of 500 extra lines coming from Scheuerle in 2009. The company currently has 2,500 people, but by 2010 it will employ 4,000. It employs 800 in the Americas, 1,000 on the Netherlands payroll (many of whom travel to Asia), 200 in the Middle East and 500 in Southeast Asia. Its turnover is EUR600m, roughly split into thirds between Europe, the Americas and Asia. "With good people, you can run this many cranes," van Seumeren said. "That's the trick, to have a lot of well-motivated people." The purchase is in line with the increased growth plan of Mammoet which is supported by the shareholders' restructuring of two years ago, said Roderik van Seumeren. He added that the company would sell some of its current crane stock, such as 25-year-old Demag CC 4800s, depending on the market. The sale was organised by by Manitowoc Crane Group's northwest Europe team.
Manitowoc: Performing near you

The 200 t (220 USt) Model 14000 joins Manitowocs celebrated line of lattice-boom crawler cranes, offering an 86 m (282 ft) main boom and 113.7 m (373 ft) luffing jib. The Model 14000 features the exclusive EPIC with Can-Bus control system enhancing the performance of all crane functions. Crane setup is optimized using FACT connection technology to reduce assembly times. For more information about the Manitowoc Model 14000, go to:
www.mcgads.com/1181.
News roundup
Cranes
Link-Belt has launched the prototype of the 550 US ton (500t) 548 HSL crawler crane at ConExpo. The Hitachi-Sumitomobuilt crane features a heavy block with 24-part reeving, twelve lines each from two boom-mounted winches (both controlled by a single cabin switch). Preliminary specs call for a 24-48m heavy boom, and 42m-108m light boom. The crane is powered by an Isuzu engine that generates 560hp at 2,000 rpm. The crane carries 205t of counterweight, 160t of which is carried on the upper. Link-Belt has also shown a first prototype of the 140 US ton (127t)-capacity HTC-3140B, the largest truck crane in the USA. Manitowoc has announced plans for a 2,300t crawler in 2010. The 31000 features a new variable-position counterweight system: a hydraulic cylinder pushes out a hinged arm connected to a hanging counterweight tray. Maximum counterweight is 910t. US crane manufacturer and renter Lampson International will deliver a unit of its largest Transi-Lift, the LTL-2600, to Chinese government customer Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant Company by the end of 2008, Bill Lampson told Cranes Today. The crane system unites two complete crawlers, with heavy boom, tracks and tracked counterweight wagon. It has an ultimate capacity of 2,360t (2,600 US tons), putting it top in Lampson's six-model Transi-Lift range. The latest crane includes some incremental improvements that make it easier to assemble and enhance its capacity. This unit is the first to be sold to an outside company. Three other LTL-2600 units have been built. Two are currently operated by Lampson Australia and one by Lampson in the USA. Bill Lampson reports that the company's bare crane rental business (cranes without operators) with traditional cranes has been strong. "There are a lot of major rigging jobs throughout the country," he said, particularly in petrochemical refineries and nuclear plants. The company has 350 employees, and 350 cranes. It manufactures the Transi-Lift at its headquarters in Kennewick, Washington. tee reached a deal with European crane manufacturers concerning limit switch overrides. US equipment will remain as-is. Brazilian construction equipment association SOBRATEMA has released a report on the Brazil market. Equipment sales were worth USD10.3bn in 2007, up 46% compared with 2006, and totaled some 54,000 units. According to the study, a total of 250 imported and locally-made mobile cranes were sold in the country in 2007, up 67% compared with the previous year. In 2007, a total of 95 tower cranes were sold, an increase of 217% compared with 2006. The association predicts 13% growth in 2008. It is promoting M&T Expo 2009, June 26 in Sao Paolo. 800t. The company is based in Fortaleza, northern Brazil, with three branches, six depots and 20 representatives across Brazil. Mike Sharron of Vista, California general contractor HMS Construction has bought the XCMG QY 60K truck crane on show at ConExpo.The crane starts work in April on an 18-month job at the Tripler Army Medical Centre in Honolulu, Hawaii. HMS is planning to fit US tyres and aluminium wheels on the Chinesemade four-axle crane before it starts work. "The price is good, and the Euro is so high, and XCMG have availability, I thought I would give them a try," Sharron said. The crane is the company's first Chinese-made crane. He bought the crane from US dealer Can-Pick.
Lift Systems has launched its largest-ever hydraulic extending gantry system that is selfcontained. The Model 4240SCTI has a lifting capacity of 240 US ton (218t) with four legs. It already has five orders for the gantry, which launched in January. The cylinders have a maximum reach of 8.2m (27ft), which allows the gantry to pick up printing presses and moulds, which are not heavy, but are tall. Lift Systems has also launched a 27t (30 US ton) mobile yard crane, the Mobilift, and a 1,000 US ton (900t) power tower. The company is planning to consolidate manufacturing facilities by moving to a new facility in East Moline, Illinois in June. Fushun Excavator Corp launched a 120t crawler crane at ConExpo. The 600tm crane can lift 120t with 12 falls of rope and standard 40t counterweight. Standard boom extends to 73m (240ft) and the maximum luffing-jib system length is 46m boom+46m luffing jib. With standard boom, the crane can pick 600kg (1,970 lbs) at 60m radius. New Liebherr Ehingen global sales manager Christoph Kleiner told Cranes Today of plans to mount the company's largest mobile crane, the nineaxle 1,000t-capacity LTM 11200-9.1 launched at Bauma last year, on crawler tracks.
Jobs and deals

Kobelco cranes marked two large orders for crawler cranes with ceremonies at ConExpo. First up was a ceremony in honour of US crane rental company Buckner, whose recent orders include four 600t SL6000 crawler cranes. Three have been delivered. Next was Sanghvi Movers, which has bought CKE 2500 crawlers in a 35-crane order. Half of the cranes had been delivered by the show. Las Vegas Republic Towers & Hoist is currently using five Linden-Comansa tower cranes for the Echelon Hotel & Casino, on the site of the old Stardust casino on Las Vegas Boulevard. Two 21 LC 400s and three 21 LC 500s have been only working on the site for two months, but will grow to up to 600ft (183m) high. Linden-Comansa has a new dealer, Missauga, Ontario, Canada-based Mega Crane. The company will continue to use and buy tower cranes from Italian manufacturer FM Gru. Brazilian crane rental firm subsidiary Makro Service has won a contract from Indian windmill manufacturer Suzlon to transport 80t generators in Brazil. The company is also pitching for the contract to install them. Makro has 86 cranes in total, with a lifting capacity up to
Ancillaries
Link-Belt has launched 3D lift planning software that works on the internet. The software does not require CAD knowledge to use. The company commissioned A1A Software, which was involved in the development of another crane simulator, Manitowoc's Compu-Crane. Data for all LinkBelt cranes will be offered free of charge. Other cranes could be added on a per-crane basis. Hirschmann begins production on a new scalable crane control system in July. The system divides crane control into modules connected over computer networks on a crane that can include computer controllers, sensors, displays, the iVisor LMI, and input/output boxes. For original equipment manufacturers, the company also provides blocks of software code to simplify integrating with the crane. Caldwell has launched a 5 US ton (4.5t) version of its remotecontrol hook-release. The device only releases the hook when it does not detect a load. Its 2.5 US ton model has been on the market for two years. The company is also launching a new version of its forklift-truck mount crane booms with integral 3 US ton or 4 US ton-capacity Thern winches.
People
Bob Hixon, Manitowoc North America sales director for lattice boom and mobile hydraulic cranes is retiring in June 2008. He goes part-time after 30 April. The son of the original Liebherr cranes distributor in the USA, Ingo Schiller, explained his decision to leave Liebherr for rival Manitowoc Cranes at ConExpo. He said that he had achieved his personal career goals at Liebherr.
Regions
After two days of negotiations at ConExpo, a SC&RA commit-
13
News analysis
US giants look to emerging markets

AT CONEXPO, THE USS TWO crane-building giants both stressed the importance of emerging markets to the future of their businesses. While the goal of becoming truly global players is the same, Terex and Manitowoc approach the problem in di erent ways. As Manitowoc announced the acquisition of a 50% stake in a Chinese mobile crane manufacturer, Terex explained how a campus strategy will form the core of its expansion. At a press conference at ConExpo, Terex president Ron DeFeo made clear why he thinks this sort of expansion is so important to big crane companies: If you can not deliver products to customers when they want, other people will enter your market: and were seeing that already, with the Chinese manufacturers in developing markets. The way to tackle this is to expand production in these markets. Terex describes its current business target as 12 by 12 in 10; that is, operating margins of 12% on revenues of $12bn by 2010. At the Terex press conference, DeFeo said that Terex had met its last landmark target, of $6bn revenues by 2006, without making acquisitions. 12 by 12, he said, will be achieved with only a few acquisitions. DeFeo noted that Terex lacks manufacturing facilities in Asia. It has beaten Manitowoc to establishing a mobile crane production facility, Terex Changjiang, which has been operating under Terex management since early 2006, but its entry into Chinese production is far more recent than Manitowoc Potains. China, DeFeo said, is an important market, but a di cult one. Terex Changjiang can compete with any brand in China. At the end of 2007, Terex increased its stake in Indian backhoe, steer loader and compaction roller manufacturer Vectra to 70%; the business is now known as Terex Vectra and operating under Terexs global branding. President and chief operating o cer Tom Riordan explained that Terex would be using the Vectra business as a launchpad for building Terexs presence in India, across its product range. Riordan described this as a campus approach. Rather than developing its di erent product arms separately, the construction equipment conglomerate is building a materials processing plant on a new site in Bangalore, which will be followed by a crane plant on the same site, and then one more facility producing another type of equipment. Talking to Cranes Today after the press conference, Steve Filipov, newly promoted to president, developing markets and strategic accounts, discussed the idea in more detail. Terexs strategy, Filipov said, isnt just to make use of existing production facilities, but also the distribution networks of new acquisitions and joint ventures. Vectras distribution network will be used as a base, from which Terex can build sales and servicing networks for its other products, including cranes. Terex, Filipov said, is looking at Brazil and Russia in the context of the rms global expansion, but it has no rm plans. Other markets under consideration for investment, DeFeo said, include the Middle East and Africa. Manitowoc used the show to announce that it had acquired a 50% stake in Chinas fourth largest mobile crane manufacturer, Taian Dongyue (see p11). The deal will see experts from Manitowocs mobile crane centre of excellence in Shady Grove help establish mobile crane production facilities capable of building cranes to Manitowocs global standards. The deal is Manitowocs second major acquisition in China, following Potains 1995 investment in (and subsequent acquisition of ) a tower crane manufacturer in Zhangjiagang. Manitowoc Crane Group president Eric Etchart oversaw the development of the Potain business in China, in his previous role as vice president for Asia, a position he rst took on before Potains acquisition by the American group. He told Cranes Today, I believe the competition is too late in China. Its a pain for gain thing: after 20 years we have a better idea of how to do business in China. Were a lot
The three key executives in Terex Cranes' expansion into developing markets: (left-right) former Cranes boss Steve Filipov, now developing emerging markets; Terex CEO Ron DeFeo; and Rick Nichols, the new Terex Cranes president
more mature than our competitors in knowing how to work in China. If we can replicate the model weve followed with our Potain plants in the Taian mobile plant, it will be very successful. As well as the Zhangjiagang plant, Manitowoc has established Potain production facilities in Portugal (serving Europe and South America), India and Slovakia. The companys strategy has been to move as fast as possible when it opens a new plant. Etchart says that the companys recent acquisition of Indian licensee Shirke is a good example of this approach. When we bought Shirke, Etchart said, It was consistent with our strategy of focussing on high growth markets. The problem is to be very quick: you need the best supplier base, the best distribution network, and the clients. From a green eld site, it can take two or three years to open a crane factory. India is moving very fast, as Shirke had already built a new plant while they were a Potain licensee. It was a no-brainer to buy a licensee who had a factory running, and knew our product. The company aims to rapidly bring its acquisitions up to the same standard as its centres of excellence (Shady Grove in the US, for mobiles, and Moulin, in France, for tower cranes). Etchart said, We now have common processes and components in all of our plants around the world: you cant see the di erence between Potain products made in France and in our plants around the rest of the world. Potain Indias new president TR Badarinarayan explained how this system works at a regional level,
The idea is to be as close to the market as possible. Manufacturing in Pune has been streamlined and brought to global quality and safety standards. The cranes made in India are in line with the standards of those made in France. Were making selected models that meet the needs of the regional market. The decision-makers for India are based in India: they need to know what the market needs. Im responsible for sales, marketing and manufacturing for India. Its important to have components of an acceptable quality. Suppliers are compared to the standards set in France: where local suppliers can meet these standards, we can use them, or we can use supplies from our global suppliers. Manitowoc now has tower crane plants in, or close to, three of the four biggest emerging markets, with India and China having their own factories, and Russia served by the recently acquired plant in Slovakia. With three of the four socalled BRIC countries served by local plants, the next step would seem to be a South American plant to serve Brazil. Cranes Today asked Etchart about the likelihood of an acquisition there. Etchart said, Were currently supplying South America from our plants in Portugal and China, because they are producing the product lines that the region needs, but we are looking at replicating the same model of development there. Were very bullish about acquiring in emerging markets, but the Taian deal is going to take a lot of resources. We can't have too many of these projects at once.
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US construction forecast: short-term bad news

ECONOMIC INDICATORS THUS far in 2008 suggest that the US economy has entered a recession that will extend through the rst half of the year. While mild in depth and short in duration, this recession nevertheless bodes ill for construction spending over the next 18 months. The origins of the downturn lay in housing. From peak activity early in 2006, real residential construction fell nearly 10% by the end of the year. It contracted another 21% in 2007 and is likely to see even worse results in 2008 with another 30% decline. We now know that the housing boom was supported by easy credit and poor lending decisions on the part of banks and mortgage companies. Even so, the residential downturn has not had a signi cant impact on crane demand in the United States. Cranes are not used heavily in American home construction, and non-residential construction has been extremely strong. Indeed, the recent situation for the crane industry in the US has been stronger than it was for much of the housing boom when non-residential activity was still subdued. However, the downturn is spreading beyond housing, as credit tightens. The Federal Reserve has intervened with rate cuts, and at least two further cuts are likely. Congress and the White House have passed measures to assist consumers in the short term while providing some investment tax incentives for business. While monetary and scal stimulus will help, the timing of the intervention is such that the best that can be accomplished is a rebound during the second half of the year. With housing activity and home prices yet to hit bottom (and still falling sharply) the downturn is now spreading more broadly throughout the economy. One problem is the consumer. Their primary source of wealth, their home, is losing value, which will induce them to save more. Additionally, rising home values funded a spending boom through home equity loans and lines of credit over 200406. Between tighter lending standards, declining home values and consumer unease, increased
15.0% 10.0% 5.0% 1.60 0.0% 1.40 -5.0% -10.0% 1994 1.20 1.00 2011 Retail buildings Housing starts 2 2.20 2.00 1.80
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Retail construction should soon start to show the effects of the residential slowdown; retail lags 18 months behind.
15.0% 10.0% 5.0% 0.0% -5.0% -10.0% -15.0% -20.0% 1994 1 Retail buildings 1996 1998 2000 Retail sales 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
9.0% 8.0% 7.0% 6.0% 5.0% 4.0% 3.0% 2.0% 1.0% 0.0%
Customers will spend less in the near term because their biggest investment, their home, is losing value.
spending via home equity is no longer desirable. The best that one can hope for is that consumer spending at least stays at in the rst half of the year. Consumer sentiment has hit the lowest levels since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and stands at levels often associated with recessions.
This matters to cranes because of its impact on retail sales and retail construction. Growth in retail construction investment continued to enjoy very strong year-on-year gains through the fourth quarter of 2007. We expect that the e ects of the downturn in the residential construction market will begin to trickle down through the retail construction sector, as it tends to lag that of the residential market by roughly eighteen months. When residential developments are no longer built, it is only a matter of time before the impact is felt in the restaurants, corner banks and drugstores and even strip malls
Retail
that also no longer need to be built. We feel that a decline in retail construction growth is imminent and is likely already underway in the rst quarter of this year and that the slump in this sector is very likely to worsen through 2009. Chain store retailers' most recent sales gures are slowing sharply. The International Council of Shopping Centers report for January showed a very sharp slowing compared to 2007. Wholesale clubs' sales grew most rapidly at 6.3% over the same period while furniture retailers saw their sales decline by 8.4%, no surprise given the severe downturn in the residential housing sector. The forthcoming decline in retail construction will likely reverberate through the warehousing sector. Warehousing construction put in place is expected to fall 5% in 2008 and a further 11.4% in 2009. Signi cant growth in warehouse construction will be postponed until 2011. Consumers are retrenching
because employment growth has continued to fade, and turned slightly negative in January. The latest Federal Reserve survey of bank lending practices showed credit tightening sharply and broadly. The evidence suggests that not only are mortgages being scrutinised more closely, but commercial developments are also experiencing more rigid standards.
Offices and hotels
Recent bank financial performance suggests that renewed hiring is not in the offing for this sector, a key driver of new office construction. Declining vacancy rates and rising rents will not be sufficient to support the continued expansion of office construction for much longer, as weakness in service sector employment growth will put the brakes on the current expansion in 2008. While it is true that recent o ce construction development has been solid based on strong underlying fundamentals, growth
17
USA
due in large part to the automotive sector, the Achilles' heel of the US manufacturing industry. The automotive industry's drag on manufacturing construction will be somewhat o set by a boost in the commercial aerospace sector as Boeing has developed a substantial order backlog. Global Insight expects a solid outlook from this sector, beyond the auto sector's near-term weakness. Construction of chemical manufacturing facilities grew dramatically over the last three years but is slated to weaken over the forecast period. The US is a mature market for chemical sales. Sales remain highly dependent on the construction and automotive industries. As both these industries are experiencing a sharp down cycle, the outlook for chemical manufacturing plants is to atten. Construction of healthcare buildings will continue to grow throughout the forecast, only the medical o ce building segment will show deterioration through 2008, but the subsequent rebound will be robust. Total healthcare construction has posted exceptionally strong growth in the last two years. A 14.8% expansion in 2006 was followed by growth of 14.4% last year. This growth is in large part due to the continued robust expansion in hospital construction, which comprises roughly 80% of total healthcare construction spending. Double-digit growth is expected again this year in the hospitals sector. Special care buildings, which account for the smallest share of healthcare construction spending, expanded by 7.6% last year and are likely to continue to expand rapidly. Only medical care o ces will post declines this year and next.
30.0% 20.0% 10.0% 0.0%
Office
Office employment
6.00%
4.00%
2.00% -10.0% -20.0% -30.0% -40.0% 1994 -2.00% 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 0.00%
As corporate profits weaken, so does spending on office buildings.
130 120 110 100 90 80 70 60 1998 Commercial
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Investment in commercial structures will decline (in billions of USD).
in nancial service sector employment is beginning to waver thanks to nancial market turmoil. New deals are being delayed because of di culties in obtaining nancing, corporate pro ts will continue to decline, mortgage applications are decreasing due to tightening in lending standards, and many lenders of sub-prime mortgages have experienced signi cant layo s due to the fallout. Although there will likely be some job growth seen in the professional and business services sector, it is unlikely it will be enough to eclipse the weakness in the nancial services sector. While 2008 service sector employment growth will remain positive, it will re ect the third consecutive annual weakening and the lowest annual gain since 2004. Construction values in the hotel sector increased by an eyepopping 62.9% last year, and 39.6% in 2006. The industry recently experienced a period of superb growth. In general the hotel industry's
fundamentals have been very strong recently. Hotels have experienced rising occupancy rates and average room rates as well as revenue per available room. These strong fundamentals have provided a need for continued expansion in the construction industry's hotel and lodging sector. This fast paced expansion simply cannot be maintained inde nitely, however. We expect that construction outlays will slow in 2008 and are likely to retreat sharply next year. The contraction in lodging construction investment is a result of slowing demand from both business and, to a lesser extent, leisure travel. Business travel is a icted by many of the same factors in uencing the demand for o ce space, but the greatest factor here remains weakening corporate pro ts. Leisure travel will also show some signs of a slowdown as consumers rein in their discretionary spending. We expect the downturn to be somewhat short-lived and growth in lodging construction will resume in 2010 and 2011.
The housing slump is acting as a drag on manufacturing output, at least over the near term. As long as the demand for new housing is low, there will be correspondingly low supply pressures from the manufacturing sector for housing related materials. Slower consumer spending and reduced housing demand erode the business con dence needed for capital investments, especially in the manufacturing sector. Nevertheless, the slide in the value of the dollar relative to many of the USs major trading partners has provided a lift to manufactured exports from the US. This is good news for the beleaguered manufacturing industry and developers. Last year's 9.2% growth in total manufacturing construction investment is expected to slow to 4% this year and just 1.5% in 2009. A return to double-digit growth is likely in the last few years of the forecast with renewed strength in all sub-sectors. Construction of transportation manufacturing buildings will su er,
Manufacturing
Highway infrastructure spending will remain positive throughout the forecast period, but growth is slated to diminish as the expiration of the 2005 Highway Bill approaches. According to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association highway and bridge construction (which accounts for the largest share of transportation projects) rose from $57.2bn in 2003 to $77bn in 2007, a 34.6% increase. The value of highway pavements increased nearly $2bn in 2007, while that of bridge construction leaped nearly
Transport
19
USA
communications, power, and manufacturing. These building types expanded at double-digit year-on-year rates. Despite the apparent momentum, our outlook for this sector is dimming. Side-e ects of the housing downturn, tightening credit conditions, and a slowdown in the US economy are all taking their toll. Global Insight forecasts spending on non-residential construction grows only 4.6% in 2008 and then contracts 2.5% in 2009. The downturn is broad based, but spending on commercial buildings will likely take the biggest hit. Some sectors of the nonresidential construction industry will enjoy positive annual growth this year however they are expected to begin contraction on a quarter-to-quarter basis during the second half of the year. Both the o ce, and lodging, sectors of the commercial construction industry will eke out low single-digit growth this year, but will likely weaken signi cantly next year. Construction values of retail structures are expected to begin contraction this year and continue into 2009 in the wake of the housing market bust. The manufacturing sector will also slow considerably this year. Construction values of food processing plants, plastics, nonfabricated metals and computer manufacturing facilities are expected to decline this year. Construction of healthcare buildings will continue to grow throughout the forecast, only the medical o ce building segment will show deterioration through 2008, but the subsequent rebound will be robust. Highway infrastructure spending will remain positive throughout the forecast period, but growth is slated to diminish as the expiration of the 2005 Highway Bill approaches.
60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1986
Manufacturing 1989 1992 1995 1998
Mines & wells 2001 2004 2007
Utilities 2010 2013 2016
Investment in industrial structures seems to go in cycles (in billions of USD).
20
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-10 Residential structures -20 Nonresidential structures -30 1990
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Housing and nonresidential construction cycles are not synchronised (year-over-year percentage change, USD year 2000).
$3bn, almost a 14% increase from 2006. Other transportation construction sectors are showing growth as well. Airport runway construction gained 6% in 2007 despite being at the previous year, while subway and light rail construction jumped 13% in 2007 after a small drop in 2006. Global Insight expects growth of 5.6% in 2008, the value of highway and street construction will likely surpass $82bn. The federal budget for scal year 2009 includes $68.2bn for federal transportation programs, a $2.13bn decline from the previous scal year. A budget cut in scal year 2009 highway investment may be coming. The larger, more immediate threat to street and highway construction, indeed, to all public construction including schools, is the e ect of the recession on state and local tax revenues. While most state and local spending for
2008 is already funded, the outlook for 2009 is likely to be more subdued.
In summary, the residential construction sector nished last year with a dismal 19.4% decline from the fourth quarter in 2006, with further declines expected through 2008. We expect that residential construction levels will reach their trough in the third quarter of 2008; however, the rebound in year-on-year growth rates will not be experienced until the second quarter of next year. From the rst quarter 2006 peak to the anticipated trough in 2008 quarter three, residential construction investment will have fallen 52%, about $363bn. Investment in multifamily structures, which will reach a trough somewhat later, is likely to experience a much more subdued rebound, and will not show positive year-on-year growth until
Residential
early 2010. Total residential construction will enjoy signi cant rebounding throughout the end of the forecast period. Private non-residential construction continued its amazing run in the fourth quarter. On a year-on-year basis, it was up 16.5%. The growth has been remarkably consistent, increasing for 15 consecutive quarters. Areas of strength included: lodging, o ce, educational, amusement and recreation, transportation,
Global Insight's economic, financial and political analysis and forecasts cover more than 200 countries and span more than 150 industries. The company employs 325 analysts, researchers and economists out of a total staff of 600 people working in 23 offices located in 13 countries around the world. For more information, visit www.globalinsight.com or contact Scott Hazelton in the USA on +1 781 301 9044 or by email: scott.hazelton@globalinsight.com.
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elevision viewers in the USA will not have missed the ever present adverts for house auctions, or for get rich quick schemes offering a surefire way to make a buck from your neighbours repossessed homes. As much as a proof that therell always be buyers for snake oil, this is a clear sign of the hard times in the housing market, and for residential construction. Many of these homes were sold on cheap credit offered to unsuitable borrowers, known as sub-prime mortgages. "There were a lot of lenders out there who qualified buyers to buy more home than they could afford on variable-rate interest loans," says Randy Robertson, sales director of boom truck manufacturer Manitex. Boom trucks are commonly used on new housing projects to set structural steel and lift and set roof trusses and wall panels. "Areas like the south east, Arizona, Nevada, the upper midwest, where they couldn't build homes fast enough, now they are sitting on tons of inventory. Houses have been way overbuilt in different parts of the country," Robertson says. "Now's not the time to go out and pour a bunch of concrete. Work smart, and manage your business closely." Many people say that the residential construction uncertainty has spread to commercial construction. "The negative effect on the crane industry of the downturn in residential construction is seeping slowly into the commercial side," says Steve Freckmann, general manager of Wisconsin-based Dawes Rigging and Crane Rental, which also sells boom trucks and other equipment. The situation is the same on the USA's east coast, according to Ray Anthony, owner of Century Steel and Florida's Ray Anthony International Crane Rental. "Commercial and housing have slowed down very much," he says. "Some jobs that were started have been stopped; some jobs that were in the planning stage have been put on hold, mostly condominiums and rental high-rises." Although Robertson at Manitex says
Homebuilders feel the crunch T
US crane dealers and manufacturers watch for signs that market uncertainty will spread from residential to commercial construction, and from mortgages to crane finance, reports Will Dalrymple
A Grove RT helps install cladding to the side of a new commercial building adjacent to the ConExpo show in Las Vegas
that he has not seen a commercial construction slowdown, he admits that it is probably coming, at least in part. "A lot of commercial construction is retail parks linked to residential: chain restaurants and stores. I haven't heard of any delay in projects, but we have to expect that has happened a little bit," he says. "If they keep talking doom and
gloom, it will definitely affect commercial construction." Small boom trucks are some of the cranes most affected by the slowdown. "The customers for those cranes, such as roofers, framers and other more housingoriented construction contractors, are suffering from the subprime situation," says Freckmann at Dawes. The company
23
USA
outpace demand for small equipment. The situation has filtered back through the dealer channel to manufacturers. "For the first time in two or three years I can deliver a unit or two from stock," says Manitex's Randy Robertson. "The [delivery] lead times have gone from 10 months, in mid-2007, to 90 days now." Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) praised a report that suggests that the US needs to invest a minimum of $225bn over the next 50 years to repair the USA's highway, transit and passenger rail systems. A vital infrastructure is an integral part of our daily lives at work and leisure. It is clear that we have enormous infrastructure repair and maintenance needs, said AEM 2008 chairman Glen Tellock, chief executive officer of crane manufacturer Manitowoc. Fellow US construction equipment and crane manufacturer Terex Corp recently supported a conference on US infrastructure projects. In a statement supporting the conference, Terex chairman Ronald DeFeo said, "Around the world, infrastructure building is booming, while many feel that the lack of spending on America's aging infrastructure is affecting our ability to compete in the global marketplace." Everyone in the crane industry renters, dealers and manufacturers would benefit if the government decided to allocate more money to roadbuilding. "Hopefully, after the 2008 elections, the new administration will focus and redirect much-needed tax revenues toward our crumbling infrastructure, and that would be a boon to the crane industry," says Freckmann at Dawes.
Manitex boom truck at ConExpo
Now's not the time to go out and pour a bunch of concrete. Work smart, and manage your business closely.
Randy Robertson, sales director, Manitex
is a subsidiary of All Erection & Crane Rental. "As a crane retailer, All Erection has seen a decrease in inquiries for both used and new 40-ton (36t) and lower capacity cranes and boom trucks." Boom truck manufacturer National is also feeling the pinch, says David Pengelly, Manitowoc Crane Credit director of global trade finance. National is owned by Manitowoc. "I can tell you that the sale of Nationals is down, but only to the extent that they are tied to small commercial and residential construction," he says. Ray Anthony argues that rental rates for small hydraulic truck cranes and boom trucks are affected (but not bigger cranes), and that as a result his rental rates are dropping. But not everyone agrees. Robertson at Manitex admits that utilisation of its C-series is down, but says that rental rates are holding their own. Freckmann argues that he cannot cut rental rates much, because of pressure from the supply side. "We as a company and an industry have had to absorb enormous cost increases resulting from rising steel prices and soaring petroleum (fuel) prices. We're dealing with the weakness of the US dollar in overseas markets, where many cranes are manufactured. Crane manufacturers have been increasing their prices in the last few years, anywhere from 3%10% per year, and charging even higher percentage increases on crane parts." On the positive side, the slowdown has meant that for the first time in a few years, customers can buy a small boom truck and receive it very quickly. Freckmann says that supply is starting to
The sub-prime mortgage collapse will delay the introduction of self-erecting tower cranes in the USA, argues Matthias Donn, executive vice president of German tower crane manufacturer Liebherr Biberach, in an interview at ConExpo. "The market was starting to be willing to use self-erectors instead of boom trucks. Now it will take more time to convince construction companies." He says the company will begin a new marketing approach of roadshows and seminars to promote the small tower cranes, which are popular in Europe, to a customer base that is largely unfamiliar with the technology. The situation has actually helped the business of Linden-Comansa, according to North America sales manager K. Matt Dobbs, who said that fewer people buying houses meant greater demand for rental condominium properties, which tend to be built by Comansa's larger topslewing tower cranes. Robertson at Manitex is hopeful that the situation will stabilise in late 2008, and turn around in mid-2009. Freckmann at Dawes seems less positive. "The outlook is more of the same for the residential construction market, with commercial vulnerable for a while. We understand that construction is cyclical. Right now, demand is high for the larger equipment, but eventually, there will be a glut of large equipment on the market as well. Supply and demand will equalise, or supply could exceed demand." All the companies interviewed said that they were dealing with the slowdown by building up other US crane markets that continue to need cranes. "We are moving more to the industrial and bridge and road work, and some large commercial work is still going on," Ray Anthony says. Freckmann says Dawes is concentrating on infrastructure and energy, particularly wind power, coal-fired power plants and ethanol/biodiesel construction. Robertson says that Manitex is turning partly to mining, particularly copper. He adds that a couple of models are used power transmission. He forecasts strong outlook for the next several years in new transmission infrastructure construction. Some large crane projects are created not by the ebb and flow of the private construction market, but by government contracts. In January 2008, the US
Impact on towers
It remains unclear whether buyers will find it more difficult to find financing for new cranes because of the credit crunch in homebuying. Randy Robertson at Manitex was the most positive. "A lot of finance companies are not offering mortgages, and are now looking elsewhere. Depending on what you are doing, credit is available." Steve Freckmann at Dawes is less positive. "Some jobs are being cancelled due to more stringent requirements on financing," he says. We know that banks are tightening up on potential equipment buyers by introducing more stringent requirements for credit. Buyers now have to meet more rigorous standards than ever before. This is seemingly a reaction to the subprime mortgage crisis." David Pengelly at Manitowoc admits that crane credit might become slightly more difficult in the future. But he says he has not seen any evidence of that happening in the USA. Cranes, particularly large ones, cost a lot, so buyers are typically sophisticated and well-financed: the sort of customer banks want to keep. Secondly, cranes' high resale value makes them a sound investment, and good collateral if the buyer defaults on the loan.
A crunch for crane credit?
24
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Cranes Today 400th issue...
We celebrate more than 35 years of articles, advertisements, opinions and lots of new cranes in Cranes Today magazine
Happy 400th to us!
ike all good stories, the history of Cranes Today starts in the middle of something else. Cranes Today was born out of 1960s predecessor called Cranes. First editor Chris Wilson explains Cranes Today's early origins. "It really started with [publisher] Morgan Grampian, when they decided to merge Cranes with another magazine, Muckshifter, into Construction Plant and Equipment. It had not been all that long since they had separated the cranes content
from Muckshifter in the first place." "I took over as editor of Cranes in May 1970, increasing publication from six to 12 per year, and we proved that there was a market for the magazine. When Morgan Grampian killed it off in 1972, publisher Ian Maclaren and I went into partnership to start Cranes Today under our MW (MacLaren/Wilson) Publishers company name." The two-man business carried on until 1984, when they sold it to United Trade Press.
Readers' letters
Over the last few months we have asked long-standing readers and crane people to write in. Here is a selection. Tom Martin, Sparrows Offshore Services, Angola, West Africa, writes: I have been an avid reader of Cranes Today for over 25 years now, I don't actually have an old copy of your magazine as I pass them on to my fellow workers in our crane department. Over the years Cranes Today in my eyes has been the 'Bible' of the crane industry and I always look forward the latest copy. Well done with reaching 400 issues of Cranes Today and look forward to reading many more issues in the future. Steve J Barnett, Managing Director, Manitowoc Crane Group (UK) Ltd, Sunderland, UK, writes: While at Neagron Plant Ltd in the 1970s and latterly NRC in the 1980s and early 1990s, we advertised in the publication on a very regular basis. I recall that I also wrote a few editorial pieces in the early days and actually had
many of my photographs published including two of my own on front cover, one was a rebuilt NCK 6052B which we sold and the other was a Sumitomo heavy Duty Crane with a diaphragm wall grab taken at Yokohama harbour. I also remember the days of Ian Johnston as publisher and the annual Rugby Varsity match at Twickenham at which the magazine hosted a fine day of corporate hospitality. I believe that Iattended about eight of these! Other than that I made a good friend in Nick Ratcliffe who was at one time the ad manager. His daughter Grace is my goddaughter. Other memories include the famous Cranes Today London Bus, which was first seen at the Haydock exhibition in the late 1980s and the other major shows, Intermat and Bauma, in the 1990s. Ben Graham, vice president & crane division manager, Kirby-Smith Machinery, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, writes: Attached is photo of me re-living Conexpo 1999 by reviewing issue 293, March 1999. That Conexpo was always special to me in my crane career as at
the time I worked for the Grove and Manitowoc dealer in Las Vegas and both Cranes Today and International Cranes featured cranes that I had sold. Im sure Im not even close to being the longest-standing reader, but it is always a must to read.
Reader Ben Graham
Several early readers wrote in with the first issue that they read. They include: Bill Houlker, general manager, Morrow Equipment Co. (NZ), Petone, New Zealand. Earliest issue: April 1973 Bev Hitchcock, Technical rep, West Country Crane Hire, Plymouth, UK. Earliest issue: August 1973 Dirk Knoester, Mammoet project engineer, Schiedam, Netherlands. Earliest issue: April 1974
Cranes Today has belonged to the US transport and rigging association for 20 years
26
...November 1972 to April 2008

Ian MacLaren, 19182005 Ian MacLaren, who founded Cranes Today in 1972, was a fighter pilot with Britains Royal Air Force (RAF) throughout World War II. He served above many of the campaigns overseas and at home flying mainly Spitfires and Hurricanes and, later on, Tempests. He used to say the Spitfire was a most forgiving plane to fly. Late in the war, when the Doodlebug pilotless bombs threatened England, Ians squadron tried to stop them by tipping their wings underneath the bombs to make them dive harmlessly into the sea. After the war, MacLaren, still in the RAF, joined Transport Command flying cargo and passenger planes on the long routes to Australia and the Far and Middle East. In 1955 he was awarded the Queens Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air. A year later, Ian flew jets as a test pilot until he retired in 1963. In civilian life, MacLaren aspired to financial journalism but found it difficult at age 45 to get much of a foothold. However, he joined the London City Press newspaper where he interviewed various industrialists and city directors and wrote articles for the features editor. Shortly after joining the trade journal Cranes, the publishing group Morgan Grampian decided to merge it into another magazine. Ian thought this a mistake and, after speaking to some of the crane manufacturers, decided to publish it himself. Hence, in 1972, Cranes Today was born in a tiny two-room office in Edgeware, North London. During his 12 years at Cranes Today, the magazine evolved from a domestic black-and-white publication printed using the hot metal process, to a colorful international magazine. In 1993, Ian moved permanently to Suffolk, where he played golf most days until ill health overtook him in 2004. He died in August 2005 aged 87, leaving wife Peggy and son Robert.
Cranes Today founders Ian MacLaren, left, and Chris Wilson, in their prime
The current Cranes Today team. Left to right: Kirsty Guest, Will Dalrymple, Mark Bridger, Will North and Martin McCarthy. Missing: Kate Hearn
Former staff reminsce

Graham Brent, former editor When I joined CT in 1979 we were still printing in black and white, and setting the type with a hot metal linotype typesetting machine. Cranes were still manufactured in the UK by Coles, Jones, Thos. Smith and Jones (remember the Iron Graham Brent Fairy?). That seems to date me far more than it should! Graham Brent is now executive director of the US National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators. Ian Johnston, former publisher Once, at a small gig run by French rental companies north of Paris, two guys from French rail company SNCF asked [ad manager] Nick Ratcliffe and me (we were known as Monsieur Cranes and Monsieur Today), in front of a large group of French crane folks why the British did not have high high-speed trains like theirs. We replied, in French, "Because French tourists like to look at our pretty countryside." They didn't think it was that funny and chalked it up to the English sense of humour. Many great memories. David Taylor, former editor Our offices were in Bowling Green Lane, EC1. It was a dump. We wrote on manual typewriters and the studio on the top floor pasted everything onto layout sheets. On the other hand, with CT I travelled the world. About a year after I joined, United Trade Press (the publisher) was bought by Robert Maxwell and became Maxwell Business Communications. I met Maxwell in 1987 just before he bought the company. He'd just bought British International Helicopters and we had run a feature on aerial lifting the previous year. Maxwell decided to turn up and we were lined up to shake his paw. At the press conference later, I was impressed to see that he'd memorised every single journalist's name.
Tim Whiteman, former editor I joined a week before we moved offices to Dartford, in Kent, a site owned by Maxwell. But then Maxwell disappeared in November 1991, and the business was in turmoil. Out of frustration in the situation - our foreign travel budget was frozen, there was no work done on the circulation Tim Whiteman - I tried to do a management buy-out of some of the titles. But the receivers did not want to sell two or three titles. At that point I had done the calculations, and knew how much money the magazine was making. I left Cranes Today and joined some others to launch International Cranes. I wish Cranes Today every success- it is a great old magazine. Tim Whiteman is now the managing director of the International Powered Access Federation (IPAF). Mark Aldwinkle, former editor The sad news in mid-March of a crane collapse in New York reinforces the message that all those articles that Cranes Today and others sought to carry over in my time as editor (1992-7) - 'safety begins with you'. That slogan has been around for many years, of course, but it struck me with particular resonance during ConExpo 1993 when I was touring some of the nearby Las Vegas crane hire companies. Phil Bishop, former editor Compared to the generally uptight and cautious civil engineers whose universe I had specialised in previously, I was happy to find crane people to be open, warm and helpful. I saw some amazing machines, with Van Seumeren's PTC a stand out, and remarkable projects, including the clear-up of Ground Zero in September 2001, which will always be a vivid memory.
Phil Bishop
27
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Alternative lifting
S i n g a p o r e f l ye r
erris wheels keep getting bigger. The London Eye was 135m tall; the Singapore Flyer is 165m; the Beijing wheel will be 208m. Brendon McNiven, associate director of construction contractor and engineer Arup, said that big wheels may get bigger yet. "The upper limit for these things comes when the limits of financing are reached, not the limits of engineering. You will have noticed a lot of these projects are around but only a few make it throughmainly as they are harder to finance than a typical building. Whereas office rentals and returns are well known, the guaranteed number of visitors to a wheel is not. Two memorable flops are the 182m Voyager intended for Las Vegas, Nevada and the 200m Shanghai Star proposed for the city of Shanghai, China. Says McNiven, The main limit is in the size of the bearings, but everywhere you come up against limits: requirements that might not be available off the shelf or loads that might be too large. Usually an innovative engineering solution can be developed. Arup had to find just such a solution for the Singapore Flyer. Its 138m rim stands above a three-storey terminal building. While Londons 122m Eye could be fabricated floating on the Thames and then be pulled upright, the lack of space on the Singapore site made this impossible: It had to be built vertically between two supporting columns. McNiven recalled doubts expressed about vertical construction. Early on the client was approached by quite reputable engineers saying the erection could not be done vertically, he said. MHI and Arup knew differently from doing the numbers. Arup was involved with the Singapore Flyer project from its conception, while
Since the London Eye was erected in 2000, large, modern, Ferris wheels have captured the imagination of city planners. Glenn Smith reports on three recent wheels in China and Singapore; On page 35, Greg Keane reports on another in Melbourne.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Tanenaka Corp had a turnkey contract to execute its construction. Also included were Kisho Kurokawa Architects & Associates, Tokyo, DP Architects Pte Ltd Singapore, and Rider Levett Bucknall project management. Horizontal construction takes gravity out of the equation, and thus pre-stresses are equal during assembly. But vertical construction means gravity-loads act within the plane of the wheel causing tension to vary at different positions in the cables, making the sequence of cable stressing much more complicated. If you have ever tried to tighten the buckle out of a bicycle wheel rim as a kid by adjusting the spokes you will know what I mean, said McNiven. To find a solution, McNiven at Arup and Akihiko Nozaka, project manager, and Kei Itou, structural design manager, at MHI oversaw a handful of engineers and designers scattered across offices in three continents testing dozens of methods of erection in a virtual CAD computer environment, analysing the forces at every stage of construction. MHI conducted wind tunnel tests at its labs in Nagasaki. Eventually, in October 2006, three years after the Singapore Flyer was a sketch on an architects pad, and one year after the groundbreaking on September 27, 2005, the time had come for MHI and Tanekana to build the support structure and assemble the wheel. Bulldozers had reformed the grounds, and the tricorneshaped terminal building was a bare framework of steel girders. Inside its three-storey perimeter, open on one side to allow entry by heavy machinery, was the platform that would withstand the 2,200t of the wheel, supporting columns, cables and capsules. Beneath it, 38 piles of 1.5m diameter had been bored to 50m, and steel-cased through the top 10 meters. Two clusters of nine piles underlay the positions where the wheels two support columns would stand. Four groups of five piles sat beneath the four spots where the cable stays anchors would sit. When erected, the Singapore Flyers two support columns would measure 85m high, 2.8m in diameter and weigh a total of 550t. Fabricated offsite, they were delivered in six sections, including their end caps.
Both sides of Singapore Flyer support columns were built in stages from the ground up, with temporary supports (in orange). Once the column heads were lifted (Fig 4), a jacking system raised the 180t hub and spindle in a single 12-hour lift (not shown). Rim sections were fitted in between two temporary spokes, hooked with cables, and then rotated out of the way. Cars were added one by one at the end.
31
Alternative lifting
The old-fashioned star of Nanchang
During assembly, the lead machine was a 600t Demag CC 2800 crawler with a 112m boom. In its shadow, MHI crews built a temporary structure resembling a sawhorse, its spine a horizontal strut spanning the distance between the not yet erected column bases. Next, the crane lifted the basal sections into place, first one then the other, so workers could bolt them to the foundation, and butt their tops to the temporary horizontal strut. Then the second sections were positioned, spliced to the section below and braced with another temporary strut. This procedure was repeated, sometimes without the struts, until the lower five sections of the two support columns were fully assembled, on October 27. Two weeks later, on November 8, the crane lifted the end caps into place. The next phase of construction, the lifting of the hub and spindle, began with the fastening of a temporary gantry across the end caps. Months earlier, MHI in Japan had fabricated the spindle and hub for the Flyer. With a length of 25m and weighing 180t, it was unwieldy. From the docks of Singapore, it was loaded onto a 120-wheel trailer, and hauled along a carefully considered route. The spindle is believed to be the biggest load ever carried through Singapore. Lifting the spindle 85m to the top of the Singapore Flyers two support columns was not possible by crane. Instead, MHI mounted two 200t strand jacks at flanking positions on the temporary gantry. Early on the morning of December 13 they began hoisting the assembly upwards. By evening, the task was finished, and the assembly was bolted to the columns end caps. In the following days, MHI secured the structure with four groups of six 100mm locked coil cable stays, lashing the end caps to the four anchors located beyond the perimeter of the terminal building,
balancing the forces horizontally at ground level through the floor of the building. The Singapore Flyers supporting structure was complete. Next MHI tackled the construction of the wheels rim, that was fabricated in Malaysia from steel pipe, 25.4mm thick and 864mm in diameter. The complete rim would be formed out of 28 sections, weighing 30t each. The engineers used temporary struts to divide the wheel into seven equal pie slices. Only one of these would be constructed at a time. The method required building two temporary struts extending from the hub to the rim perimeter. Each strut was made of four lengths, winched into position and fastened with high-tension bolts. When two struts were ready, four rim sections would be attached between them, and radial cables (the spokes of the wheel) installed in a slack condition. This finished pie slice was strengthened with a lightweight steel chord forming a bowstring truss around the wheels perimeter. Fully stabilised, the pie slice would be rotated out of the way so that another strut could be added and work on the rim continued. MHI worked on the rim and its spokes from January 2007 to mid-July. The crew then removed the struts and stressed the cables in two stages to avoid overloading the rim. With the wheel itself complete, a 160t mobile crane lifted the 10t passenger capsules one by one to a support platform erected on top of the terminal building. A drive unit on an eye deck near the base of the wheels supporting columns rotated the wheel into position, enabling workers to attach the capsules. By the end of October all that remained was to run some tests and prepare the grounds for opening day in February. On a clear day, visitors will be able to see the borders of Malaysia and Indonesia 45km away.
The high-tech Great Beijing Wheel
Two Chinese wheels

In 2006, China completed The Star of Nanchang, which at 160 meters high cut short the 135-meter London Eyes tenure as worlds tallest. But it is a traditional, compression-braced Ferris wheel built in the middle of nowhere. Nanchang was sleepy backwater until Ford built an automobile factory in 1995. The city got rich overnight and the city fathers commissioned the project, perhaps in a fit of civic pride. In November 2007,construction crews in Beijing broke ground on the 208m bicycle-shape Great Beijing Wheel, now scheduled to open in 2009. The builder is the Shanghai Construction (Group) General Company. Several foreign veterans of London Eye worked on the project, including the Dutch engineers IV Bouw, Poma of France (observation capsules), and Bosch Rexroth (hydraulic drives).
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Australia's big wheel

esigned by Meisho (Japan), the wheel is being erected by Alfasi Steel Construction using a new 600t TerexDemag CC2800-1 crawler crane supplied by Tutt Bryant Crane Hire as the major lift crane and its own 150t Sumitomo SCX 1500-2 crawler crane for general lifting and tailing as required. A variety of other cranes from its own fleet or local crane hirers were used as required. The CC2800-1 was initially rigged with 96m of main boom and 300t of Superlift counterweight, and undertook all lifts from a single lift pad. Tutt Bryant Crane Hire and Alfasi Steel Constructions spent several weeks in detailed planning for the project, using Autocad for detailed 3D lift studies. The suggested method from the designers involved use of 600t, 400t and 300t pin jib crawler cranes, and this would have been prohibitively expensive, even if all the cranes had been available at the one time: almost an impossibility in the current buoyant Australian market. An objective of the lift studies was to develop methods that allowed connections to the inner hub and spokes to be made from the side, rather than at the top of the hub, to reduce the lift height and allow smaller cranes to be used to assist the 600t crawler crane, which was required for the heaviest lifts. The methods developed are not
Construction is well advanced on the 120m high Southern Star observation wheel at the Waterfront City development in Melbourne, Australia. When completed in late 2008 it will become the largest such wheel in the southern hemisphere, reports Greg Keane
believed to have been used elsewhere in the world for similar structures. The attention to detail and quality control in the planning and construction phases have allowed the erection to proceed smoothly, despite this being the first big wheel built by Alfasi, and the largest designed by Meishi. Understanding the behaviour of the structure at different stages of construction was a continual learning curve. Because of the poor ground conditions (Coode Island silt, with the water table only 2.5m below ground level), the concrete lift pad was 12m x 11m x 2.5m deep, and founded on 24 piles. The ground over which the Sumitomo travelled was covered with geofabric overlaid with crushed rock. The observation wheel comprises an inner and outer hub joined by seven spokes, with the axis supported on each side by tripod stands. The tripod legs comprise a 56.2m long, 59.8t vertical column and two bracing columns; one being 58.9m long and weighing 76t, and the other being 72m long and weighing 76t. The legs were fabricated off site and delivered in two halves, with final assembly and painting taking place on site. A capital joined the legs at the apex. The first tripod erected was furthest from the fixed lifting position, and its vertical leg was erected first. Both cranes lifted the leg from the ground, with the
Top: 200t AT and Tadano GR-700EX lifting final rim sections into place. Middle and bottom: Tutt Bryant TerexDemag CC 2800-1 lifts second, and third, leg of first tripod into place
35
Alternative lifting
The Terex-Demag crawler was at 99% capacity lifting the 152t hub
Terex-Demag raising the upper end and the Sumitomo walking the base into position, where it was connected to the foundations. The leg was then held in place using temporary supports.
The first four spokes were installed at three o'clock; the final four at one o'clock
The remaining two legs were erected in a similar manner, although this was complicated by a drain running through the work area. The Sumitomo walked the base of each leg to the edge of the drain, where it was unhitched from the load and walked around the drain. It then picked up the leg again, and walked it to the foundations. These legs were also secured in place by temporary props until the capital was placed. The second tripod was erected in a similar manner, but because the radius was reduced 32.5m, the Superlift counterweight of the Terex-Demag was reduced to 100t. The next stage was to pre-assemble the 25m diameter, 8m deep inner hub that weighing 152t. It was built on a temporary assembly stand 14m above the ground, and lifted from there to a height of 67m, where it was mounted in bearings on the capitals. This took 5 hours, and the TerexDemag crane was at 99% capacity for the lift. The biggest concern was the wind (gusts of 140 km/h had been recorded at a similar time during the previous year), and with the 490m2 surface area of the hub, the safe wind speed for the lift was calculated at 19 km/h. The final lifts on this project for the CC2800-1 were the seven triangular lattice construction spokes, each 33m long, 10.2m wide at the base, 8m deep and weighing 24.5t. The first four spokes were installed at the three oclock position, and the boom was then reconfigured from 96m to 114m length for the final three spokes, which were installed at the one oclock position. The wheel was rotated between lifts, so that the lifts were undertaken at the same orientation. The first two spokes were installed as dual lifts using the Terex-Demag and Sumitomo crawler cranes, and all other lifts were undertaken with the TerexDemag alone, with the Sumitomo supporting a man basket for the riggers connecting the spokes to the hub. Soft slings were attached to the main chords at the top of each spoke at 4 points, and chain blocks were connected in two locations at one end, allowing fine adjustment of the angle of the spokes to assist with the connection. Each spoke took six hours to install. Once all seven spokes were installed, small sections of the outer rim were installed to each of the spokes. These rim sections were 12m long and weighed 12t, and were installed using Alfasis 150t
The last legs
Sumitomo SCX 1500-2 crawler crane, with its 70t Tadano GR-700EX used for man box access. These sections were installed at the four oclock or eight oclock position, with the wheel rotated between lifts using hydraulic winches. The outer rim was built in sections on the ground, with each section joining a pair of spokes. The sections were approximately 30m long and 6.5m wide, and weighed 32t. When each section was constructed it was walked into position for the lift, using the Tadano GR700EX and two 20t Franna articulated pick-and-carry cranes. A 200t all terrain crane was hired in as the main crane for these lifts, with the GR-700EX acting as a tailing crane and Alfasis 55t Tadano GT-550EX truck crane supporting a man box for the riggers to connect the rim section. Each section was installed in the seven oclockeight oclock position. The SCX1500-2 was used to tension the top spoke, which sagged when not connected to the outer rim, and 17t of force was required to correct the sag. The boom of the 200t crane was positioned under the spoke above for the rim section lifts, with only 0.5m clearance between the boom head and the spoke steelwork. The wheel was rotated between lifts with the hydraulic winches so that all outer rim segments were erected in the same position. Each lift took 56 hours. The main work remaining is to attach hangers to the outer rim to support the 21 observation cabins, and to attach the cabins (each weighing 14t). The cabins will be lifted onto a raised slab that forms part of the permanent works, skated into position and jacked up for attachment to the hangers.
Two cranes tandem lifted the rim; a final raised the sagging spoke above
36
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Alternative lifting
Vanguard holds its beer
South African transport and installation specialist Vanguard used a tailor-made gantry system to lift eight tanks into place at a Tanzanian brewery. Will North reports
he eight 8t tanks measure 21m by 5.2m, and needed to be installed in two rows of four in a tight industrial site, with only 50mm clearance in some places. Vanguard rigging and installation manager,Wynand Boshoff, says,The installation of the tanks was challenging: The main issue was the lack of space surrounding the stands on which the tanks needed to be positioned. For this reason traditional cranes were not considered. We developed a new solution for the lift by designing and supplying a portal crane that spanned the foundation with a hook height of 25m. This new portal crane system was designed and constructed in Johannesburg, packed into containers and shipped to Tanzania, says Boshoff. On site, the system took two weeks to assemble, and was then lifted onto rails on top of the platform using a crane.
Having set up the system, the tanks were then brought onto the site one at a time on low bed trucks, lying on their sides. A small mobile crane was used to stabilise the bottom end of the tank while the top was attached via a hook to the portal crane system. The tank was then lifted incrementally to move it into a vertical position. Once vertical the system rolled on the rails to position the tank above its respective base. Boshoff notes that in addition to the space limitations that restricted movement, it was also a challenge to complete the portal crane assembly in such a small area.Moreover, we had to deal with some heavy winds, but overall we relied on our experience, skilled staff and project engineers from our Mombasa (Kenya) and Johannesburg offices, and the job was completed successfully.
One of the tanks is lifted into a vertical position by the gantry, with a tailing mobile crane.
39
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Plugging gaps in safety

The best intentions might not always protect crane companies from accidents. Will Dalrymple reports on a way to prove whether everyone in a company thinks the same way as its managers do.
ere are some simple questions. Were you tested for illegal drugs before your employment? Do you understand how the cost of accidents affects your company's profits? Have you received enough training to effectively perform your job? Your confidential and anonymous answers to 36 questions like these paint a picture of your entire company, when they are combined with those of all of your colleagues, the staff you manage, and your managers. They can show where there are communication and expectation gaps between the beliefs of executive management, operations management, supervision and skilled craft employees. The technique uses the same principle as police questioning suspects individually, and comparing their stories. Ask a senior manager: is safety important to you? Ask field staff: do you feel senior management thinks safety is important? Their responses may not be the same. Nor might executives and supervisors answer the following questions the same way: Do you understand how the cost of accidents affects your company's profits? Does your supervisor insist on prompt medical attention for every employee? Do you respect your supervisor as a leader? Researchers compare the results; any questions with less than 70% yes votes are noted; any questions with less than 60% are red-flagged for investigation. A disparity of 15% between the answers of employee groups - operations management compared to supervisors, for example - indicates that there are misperceptions, gaps, in the company's safety programme. Although the survey is carried out by insurer Zurich, it does not make any promises about reducing the premiums of companies who go through the
process, says Forrest Ropp, senior risk engineer. "We want to incentivise safe operations. If we can help you improve, you are more attractive to work at, more professional, and more competitive. Insurance rates are outside of that." Once a company's gaps are identified, many improvements can be made. "Say that there is a gap in the perception of employees about whether they are encouraged to be actively involved in safety - the management thinks they are, the craft employees think they are not. You can make that part of a supervisor's management responsibilities, and set up safety committees, for example, or encourage employees to survey fellow employees about where they see problems in safety." Zurich risk engineering manager Daniel Buswell adds: "This is a perception survey. Communication is the problem and how it is delivered and received." The final report prepared by Zurich recommends how to improve the company's safety and performance. "We will work with customers to figure out how to best implement the changes," says Buswell. "If we delivered the report and left it, I don't think that would offer value. Part of the goal is to effect change." Ropp says that the process is not suitable for every company. "The results might be surprising, and we want to be sure that a company is willing to take that on. The responses are not really disputable. The company needs to have a desire to improve, and Southern Industrial had that." Raleigh, North Carolina-based firm Southern Industrial Contractors was first contacted to take part by Zurich in October 2007. "It is a really unique survey, and helps make sure everyone's on the same page," says vice president of safety
and risk management Phil Hooper. The first round of surveys to the company's 500 staff were sent out in December. Unfortunately a low response rate forced the company to send out a second mailing in February. "Our employees are spread out over the southeast USA; some report to the same place every day, some are all over the place. When they get mail, it is easy to put it aside, throw it away, or forget about it. Because there were no names on it, we can't say, 'John Smith didn't fill out his survey,'" Hooper says. "The way it was told to me is, if you do it right, and get a high enough return, it will actually mean something. But if there is a low turn-out, it is not worth the effort. So it is critical that you get good numbers, and good data." Hooper expects to get the full results in April. "It is an opportunity to make the safety quality of the business better, but I don't anticipate we will have to drop everything to fix it. It will probably reveal stuff that we already realised, where we can feel that something is not right, but where we don't know how quite how bad, or good, it is." Southern Industrial uses Zurich for its general liability, automobile and workers' compensation insurance, Hooper says. Zurich paid for the safety audit. "The game plan is, based on results, identify the areas of improvement, and come back at a later time to see if we have closed the gaps," Hooper says. Zurich employs US management consultancy CM-Services to run the process. CM-Services adapted the process, which was developed by the US Government in the 1950s, to the construction industry.
Gap analysis survey can validate whether what people see is completely accurate
41
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Rigging
A place for everything

Derrick Bailes, chief executive of the Lifting Equipment Engineers Association, explains why, and how, a well-designed rigging store can make lifting operations safer, regardless of the size of the business
o matter what type of crane is used, virtually every lifting operation requires additional equipment to connect the load to the crane. The terminology used around the world for such equipment varies, but for the sake of simplicity I shall use the general term of rigging gear. One only has to consider the consequences of sudden equipment failure to appreciate that the suitability and condition of rigging gear are of vital importance to the overall safety of lifting operations. Not only will the load drop, but the recoil could damage the crane. On a counterbalanced crane, this might result in overturning or collapse, clearly a situation to be avoided. However, given the way that some organisations treat rigging gear, it is clear that many are still failing to recognise the potential dangers. All too often equipment is poorly stored, left exposed to the elements and rarely inspected. As well as damage arising from poor storage, rigging gear is also generally vulnerable to accidental damage in use. Errors in the geometry of the rigging, sharp edges and dynamic or shock loading can all overload or permanently damage rigging gear even though the weight of the load being lifted is less
than the working load of the item. When this happens, the equipment is certainly being misused; unfortunately, even the best-trained and most conscientious rigger can, and occasionally will, make such mistakes. It is part of what makes us human and should be recognised as such. In the worst case it can lead to immediate failure. More often, if the equipment is in good condition, it results in damage to the equipment, not failure. The rigging gear might prevent an accident, but the damage, if undetected, can lead to premature failure when the rigging gear is subsequently used. With the proper facilities and procedures in place, the effects of such errors can be minimised. The facilities and procedures required are relatively simple. Essentially they are storage, control and inspection. The storage must protect the equipment from the elements and accidental damage, prevent unauthorised access and provide a means of segregating or quarantining unserviceable equipment. The control must keep track of whom the equipment has been issued to. Furthermore, if appropriate, it should cover who authorised it, where equipment is to be used and for how
long, and record when it is returned to store and whether it is serviceable. The system must also keep track of when equipment is due for maintenance and its periodic inspection. At least two levels of inspection are necessary. Many countries have legislation requiring a periodic inspection and a formal record of the result. However, even if this is not the case, it is good practice to do so and it provides useful information for the management of the organisation. The periodic inspection is normally done at six monthly intervals. If this inspection is finding equipment that is already in an unserviceable condition, then there is something wrong with the day-to-day in-service inspection regime. Because rigging gear is vulnerable to accidental damage every time it is used, it should effectively be inspected every time it is used. This is much less onerous than it sounds. A trained rigger should be able to look after the tools of the trade. Without wishing to understate the importance of inspection, most general purpose rigging gear is not complex and can be adequately inspected by someone with a few days training. With practice, riggers should be able to run their eyes over the equipment as it is being handled. These then are the essential components of a rigging storage and control facility. Depending upon the amount of equipment involved, the facility can range from a permanent building complete with staff to a lockable box. The basic principles remain the same.
Lifting Engineers, www.leea.co.uk, accredits lifting gear testers and vendors worldwide. It also publishes The Code of Practice for the Safe Use of Lifting Equipment.
43
Rigging
Unserviceable equipment should be labelled as such and segregated into a separate quarantine area. Equipment should only be withdrawn from storage by someone authorised to do so and this may require a formal documented procedure. In any event, a record should be made that the equipment is logged out, when, and to whom. This record effectively hands over control and responsibility to the recipient who should ensure equipment is returned or, if it goes astray, reported missing. On a large site it may also be useful to record how long it has been issued for so that, in the event of it not being returned on time, action can be taken to recover the equipment. If equipment is not returned to stores after a job is completed there is a temptation for others to use it, particularly if doing so avoids a lengthy trek to the stores and back. However, it is then open to question whether the equipment is still serviceable. Another matter to consider is the handing over of equipment where the job involves shift or crew changes. On returning an item to the stores, the user should report any problems with it. If equipment has been damaged, any cost has already been incurred. To minimise both the safety risks and further financial losses, it is essential that damage is not covered up. For that reason, management should encourage a no blame culture. Failure to do so encourages people to hide problems and lose equipment, both of which usually prove more expensive in the long run. Last but not least, the store should hold an adequate stock of equipment allowing for the likelihood of some becoming unserviceable and thereby avoiding the temptation to use potentially dangerous equipment. The above is very much the ideal, suitable for a large organisation. If having it permanently staffed is not economically viable, the store should be locked and control handed to someone who will be available as and when necessary. All riggers should be capable of inspecting the equipment they use so a viable solution could be to appoint a rigger. However it is inadvisable to appoint more than one per shift. Allowing all the riggers free access to the store is likely to result in chaos. A setup along these lines is often ideal for smaller sites and can even be made portable. Containerised rigging stores are used in the offshore industry and have the advantage that when a periodic inspection is due, the entire store can be returned onshore and exchanged for a freshly replenished one. In a marine environment where corrosion is a major factor and space limited, the facility to return the equipment to the convenience of a well-equipped onshore workshop is an advantage. A containerised rigging store could be equally suitable for a construction site although the specification would be a little different. Containers for offshore use are designed to be transferred at sea by crane with a special lifting sling. Of necessity they must be much more robust than standard freight containers and there are limitations on weight and size. For a construction site a standard freight container is suitable and could be of adequate size to facilitate the periodic inspection on site. There are several other scenarios to consider. On a construction site, many cranes will have a general purpose sling more or less permanently left on the hook. It should not be forgotten. The riggers should keep a watchful eye on it and it should be inspected properly at least once a week. Similarly, many mobile cranes on general hire duties, or larger loaders used for lifting jobs, carry a selection of general purpose rigging gear effectively under the control of the driver. The quantity may be such that only a lockable box is needed, but adequate control should still be exercised and care taken to ensure that the equipment is not damaged in storage. It is all too easy to throw everything back into the box at the end of a job wet, dirty, contaminated and possibly damaged. The driver is unlikely to have seen in detail what the rigger did with the equipment, so should have the facility to have it cleaned up and inspected. If done by others, the driver should still be capable of inspecting the equipment. The crane rental company should maintain records of what equipment is with each crane and ensure it does get inspected before each job and when the periodic inspection is due. They should also ensure that each crane has an adequate stock of rigging gear, partly for the reasons already outlined but also to avoid personnel hiding their favourite items for fear of losing them when made available for inspection. The scale of the rigging store may vary according to the nature of the organisation but the principles of proper storage and control are common to all. The objective is to ensure that the equipment is suitable for the application and serviceable. Without proper storage and control, any one thing that goes wrong can represent the last straw and result in catastrophe. With proper storage and control, you have in place a much more robust regime which acknowledges and takes account of the fact that people dont always get it exactly right every time. As a result, it stacks the odds firmly in your favour.
Let us now look at a few typical examples of how the storage, control and inspection system may be put into practice, starting with an outline of the ideal facility. The storage should be clean, dry and free from contaminates which might damage the equipment. Suitable shelving, racks or other storage are required. Slings and loose gear such as shackles of a size that can be lifted manually are best stored hung on racks or in stillages. Heavier items may need to be palletised or put into special stillages. Heavy items such as lifting beams, crane forks and clamps may need support to ensure they cannot topple. There should be a designated area where returned equipment is kept until it has been inspected. If, due to the nature of the business, it is likely that equipment will be returned to storage dirty or contaminated, a facility will be required to clean it and prepare it for storage. The methods used must not of themselves cause problems. Rigging gear materials can be susceptible to chemical attack, corrosion or heat. There should be an inspection area with good lighting, a suitable bench to work on and a facility to make records and label equipment. A suitably trained person should be appointed to carry out the inspections. Each item will need an individual ID mark and, if equipment is obtained without an individual ID, an appropriate facility to stamp or tag it will be needed. A record of the inspection should be kept giving the ID, a brief description, date of inspection, the name of the inspector and whether or not it was found to be serviceable. This can be as simple as a single line entry on a paper record or, at the other extreme, an electronic record with the ID given by an RF identifier and scanned.
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Rigging
Colour coded
Airbus Filton uses 10,000 separate items of loose equipment, many of which leave the site for long periods. Rigging manager Jason Sutton faced a challenge to make sure all of this equipment can be properly tracked. Will North reports
A rigging store and orange dump bin, with colour code chart, at Airbuss Filton plant.
irbus builds planes across Europe. At Filton, in south west England, it makes leading and trailing edges for wings, and the wing boxes that fit them to the planes fuselage, as well as a wide range of other parts. The wings are lifted and turned as they are built, using customised spreader beams, vacuum pads, and a range of slings and chains. Wing sections are sent to Seville, in Spain, for assembly, and working parties from Filton often visit the Spanish plant. When they do, the rigging equipment they use can travel with them. Airbus wanted to ensure that all loose lifting equipment was inspected every six months, or more where it worked in
chemical environments. The range of equipment used, and the long journeys much of it went on, made this difficult. Back in 1996, Sutton had been appointed recently as rigging manager, but was stuck at home with a broken leg. Rather than leaving him with nothing to do, Airbus set him the task of devising a system to track the firms rigging equipment. He worked closely with the plant's insurance inspectors, Bureau Veritas. The basis of the system is that each item of equipment is tracked, all the way from the manufacturer. Airbus only works with suppliers who can provide equipment marked with a part number that fits Airbus' in-house tracking system. Each piece of equipment carries a tag
with a year and unit number. Airbus Filton's procurement staff are trained to recognise lifting equipment when it appears on an order. When it does, it is flagged up by them and marked for quarantine, so it can only be accepted on to the site by the rigging management team, or insurance inspectors. When new equipment comes on site, it is inspected, and a record of the inspection kept. Inspection logs, manuals, and any other documentation, are scanned and stored on a secure server, so that the history of any piece of equipment can be called up at the click of a mouse. While this part of Sutton's system ensures that the equipment is all identified and trackable, it doesn't
47
Rigging
A dump bin, with its space marked on the plant floor (left) and a tag (right) with part number and colour-coded cable ties showing next inspection date.
provide an easy way for lifting staff to see if the equipment is due for inspection. Sutton realised that a colour coded system of tags would ensure that items' inspection dates could be clearly marked. Under his initial scheme, a four colour system was used, with a different coloured tag for each three month period. This was simple, and made it easy to see when the equipment was past its inspection due date. On a site where equipment never travelled out of the system, this would work well. However, in Airbus, working parties from Filton often travel to plants across Europe, taking equipment with them. Often, they would be away long enough that when they returned their equipment appeared to be carrying the correct tag for safe use, when it was in fact a long way past its inspection due date. A new system needed to be developed. Sutton and Bureau Veritas developed a 12 colour system instead. Cable ties were used, with the year the equipment would be due inspection marked on the tie. A second tag, on the tie, carries the inspection month, both in writing, and in a colour code. Under this system, it's impossible for equipment to be incorrectly identified as safe to use. This system has now been rolled out to other sites inspected
by Bureau Veritas, including aircraft engine makers Rolls Royce. The plant's working practices and physical layout support the system. Around the plant, specially designed stands hold the equipment that staff will need. Each stand is marked with the safe working load for the equipment it carries. Most of the stands are partnered by bright orange 'non-retrieve' cages. The cages have a hole in the top, for staff to deposit equipment if it loses its tag, or if it is damaged. The equipment inside cannot be reached from the top, but only from a locked door at the bottom of the cage. Only the rigging management team and the insurance inspectors have a key to this door. The rigging management team and inspectors regularly empty the bins. If equipment has just lost a tag, it can be identified by its part number, and the correct tag replaced. If it may have been damaged, a proper inspection is carried out. If it can be reused, a new tag with a due date six months away, is fitted. When equipment leaves the site, the system keeps working. It would be expensive to send an inspector out to Seville every time equipment needs to be checked, so instead equipment returns to base for inspection. As small pieces of equipment approach their inspection due date, replacements are
flown out in a steel cargo box. Old equipment is sent back to Filton for testing. For larger pieces of equipment, such as pallet trucks, replacements are sent out by road. Rather than sending the old pieces of large equipment back a piece at a time, it works out cheaper to buy extra pieces, and send them back when there is enough to fill a truck. Staff at Filton know that it's a serious breach of safe working practices to use equipment that isn't tagged, or is past its inspection due date, so the system rarely goes wrong. This year, the plant has not found a single piece of 'maverick' equipment, that falls out of the system. Last year, one piece of kit did manage to enter the system. A supplier had sent a pallet load of goods to the plant. When it arrived, the supplier offered the pallet truck the goods came on, for free. As the truck had entered the system outside of the normal procurement process, it was able to escape quarantine and inspection. However, it was spotted on the same day by a member of staff, used to the routine of checking every piece of equipment for the correct tag. The truck was quarantined, immediately. The supplier, Sutton says, received a 'stern email', reminding them not to supply equipment outside of Filton's tracking system.
48
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Rigging
The rigging system enables the load to be picked off-centre The Signal-Rite compensator system up close
Hoist keeps forms level

Rigging safety company Signal-Rite has developed a way to lift out a concrete form when one end has been covered by cast concrete, reports Will Dalrymple
ignal-Rite has designed, built and had approved a rigging system hung from a construction crane for moving concrete forms out from underneath concrete slabs. The concrete slab poured on top of the form covers about a third of an 80ft (24m)-long form, including all of one end. The slab obstructs access to the natural lifting points on one end. The Signal-Rite rigging system consists of a 52in (1.3m) spreader bar and four wire rope slings. Two 7/8in (22 mm) wire rope slings run from the edges of the spreader bar to each side of the form just beside the slab. Beneath the chain hoist, balanced with 150 lb (46kg) of counterweight, two lines attach to the form about 20ft (6m) from the first two points. Two tether lines keep the hoist from rotating. The hooks are spread as widely as
possible on the form to resist tipping. But the obstruction of the concrete slab above means that the crane hook is not located above the centre of gravity of the form. If a crane tried to lift the form with four slings of the same length, the form would swing, and then hang at an angle. This is where the chain hoist comes in. First front, and then rear, pick points are hooked up as the form is rolled out of the building. As the crane hook lifts up, the chain hoist hook is lowered by remote control, to keep the form horizontal. During the process, the hoist can take up to two-thirds of the form's weight. Signal-Rite has built three sizes of spreader, and specced a different sized Harrington chain hoist for each; a 5 US ton hoist with three falls of chain, 10 US ton hoist with four falls of chain and 15 US ton hoist with six falls of chain. The company teamed up with Harrington supplier and parent firm, Kito
of Japan, to develop a modified kit hoist whose power cable and remote pendant cable both come out the same side. Signal-Rite chose Harrington because its hoists are more forgiving of side pulling than other brands, said president Jeff York. The hoist chain angle ranges from vertical (90 degrees) to 65 degrees. Signal-Rite has sold more than 20 systems over the past 18 months and it has been 'wet stamped' (approved) by professional engineer Avery Miller of Oakland, California. Customers include Atlas Construction Supply, Penta Group, Marnell Corrao, Patton Systems, Nibbe Brothers, Webcor Builders and Ceco Concrete.
There are four cables in the system: two running from the chain sling, and two running from the edges of the spreader bar.
50
Catalogue Digest
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USED CRANES FOR SALE

M. STEMICK GMBH Kran-u. Baumaschinenhandel Annabergstr. 97 D-45721 Haltern/Germany
or contact us at: heiko.koop@borcherts.com Tel: +31 - 653 652 522 Fax: +31 - 514 569 186
Import - Export
Tel: +49-2364-108203 Fax: +49-2364-15546 Mobile: +49-172-2332923 e-mail: info@stemick-krane.de Internet: http://www.stemick-krane.de
Young Hitachi and Kobelco crawler cranes in stock!

52
APRIL 2008 CRANES TODA Y
YOUR PARTNER FOR CRANES & PARTS
Buy used cranes online www.cranestodaymagazine.com and click on used cranes
The Market Place
y
1(: $1' 86(' &5$1(6 2) $// 6,=(6
$PHULFD &DQDGD &DULEEHDQ $VLD (XURSH $XVWUDOLD
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K-M-S Krane-Maschinen-Service GmbH & Co.

Handels KG
HOMAR B.V.
STOCKLIST
Telescopic AT-cranes
capacity 100 t 75 t 75 t 70 t 70 t 65 t 35 t 35 t 30 t 30 t 20 t 20 t 15 t 35 t manufacturer Krupp Grove Grove Faun Krupp Faun Liebherr PPM PPM Kato Grove Grove Coles Tadano type KMK 5100 GMK 4075 GMK 4075 ATF 70-4 KMK 4070 RTF 65-4 LTM 1035-3 ATT 380 ATT 335 KA 300 E AT 422 AT 422 Transit 515 TG 350 QUY 150 A LTR 1100 7065 CTR 80 40 GMI year 1989 2001 2001 1999 1989 1993 1989 1989 1997 1990 1991 1990 1981 1980 2007 2008 1990 1978 1991 1997 1997 1997 1996 535-125 535-95 732 530-70 2005 2003 2005 2003 drive/steering 10 x 6 x 8 8x8x8 8x8x8 8x8x8 8x6x8 8x8x8 6x4x6 4x4x4 4x4x4 4x4x4 4x4x4 4x4x4 4x4x4 8x4x4 4x4x2 4x2x2 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 x x x x x x x x 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 x x x x x x x x 4 2 2 2 4 4 4 4 boom/jib (m) 42 / 19 43,2 / 17 43,2 / 17 40,5 / 16 38 / 16 40,5 / 16 30 / 14,5 30,5 / 12,5 27,4 / 15 26,4 / 7,3 21,4 / 21,4 / 17,2 / 9 31,6 / 8,5 72 / 36 52 / 19 45 / 19 8,5 12,30 18 18 18 18 12,5 9,5 7 7
Import-export hydraulic and lattice boom cranes

Tel: +31-341-253982 Fax: +31-341-254207 Email: info@homar.nl Web: www.homar.nl
delivery March direct ex Dubai direct ex Dubai direct direct direct April direct direct direct direct direct direct direct direct ex Dubai rental May direct ex Dubai direct direct direct ex Dubai direct ex Dubai direct ex Dubai direct direct direct direct direct
ABOUT 50 USED CRANES FOR SALE!
Homar B.V Marconiweg 15 8071 RB Nunspeet The Netherlands
35 t Liebherr LTM 1030-2, 2002
Grove AT 755-C, 1998
Liebherr LTM 1080-1, 2001
Telescopic-AT-Cranes
25 t 30 t 35 t 40 t 40 t 40 t 40 t 40 t 50 t PPM TEREX Grove Liebherr Liebherr Tadano Faun Tadano Faun Kato TEREX Demag PPM TEREX C 280, AT 635 E, LTM 1030-2, LTM 1040-1, HK 40, RFT 40-3, KA 400 E, AC 40-1, ATT 600, 1990 1998 2002 1993 + 1995 2006 1992 1992 1999 1999
Telescopic truck-cranes Crawler cranes

Fushun Liebherr Kobelco IHI
150 t 100 t 65 t 8t
Yard cranes
40 t
Reach stacker
JLG JLG JLG JLG
Man lifters
PPM
3,5 t 3,5 t 3,2 t 3t
Telehandlers
600 AJ (4 items) 600 SJ (4 items) 600 S 600 A JCB JCB Manitou JCB
More cranes available, visit our website: www.kms-cranes.com Email: mail@kms-cranes.com Tel: +49-2595-38698-0 Fax: +49-2595-38698-88
Earth moving JCB 2 CX airmaster/loader JCB 2 CX airmaster/loader Caterpillar 302.5C JCB 8030 excavator
2005 2003 2008 2007
4x4x2 4x4x2 tracks tracks
direct direct direct direct
Crane details and photos on: www.homar.nl | ALWAYS LOOKING FOR USED CRANES FOR SALE
CRANES TODA Y
APRIL 2008
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The Market Place
EJAR IS DEDICATED TO PROVIDING STATE-OF-THE-ART RENTAL CRANES AND EQUIPMENT FOR CONSTRUCTION
EJAR PROVIDES THE RIGHT LIFTING SOLUTIONS THROUGH INNOVATION AND COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE
ADD VALUE TO YOUR PROJECTS WITH EJARS FLEET OF CRANES AND EQUIPMENT
NEW NAME
NEW TECHNOLOGIES
NEW CRANES AND EQUIPMENT
EJAR CRANES & EQUIPMENT LLC P.O.Box 282352 Dubai, United Arab Emirates | Tel: 04-3298580 | Fax: 04-3298856 | Web: www.ejarco.ae | E-mail: office@ejarco.ae
CRANES TODA Y
APRIL 2008
55
The Market Place
INNOVATION IN LIFTING
Lift System combination Model 22 A and Model 24 A off loading a 95 ton concrete dryer
www.
the BIGGEST in GERMAN BUILT CRANE PARTS, USED CRANES and MATERIALS
ucmholland
BEFORE
.nl
WE REPAIR OR BUY YOUR DAMAGED CRANES
AFTER
THE NETHERLANDS
10 MINUTES BY CAR FROM AMSTERDAM (SCHIPHOL) AIRPORT
Tel: +31(0)252 235 468

ere! be th Well IDE AREA F9
OUTS www
Fax: +31(0)252 231 874
26/6 N9 a .d e .b a u m
used cranes for sale

Contact: David Symon
Nigg Plant Limited Mobile Number: +44 (0) 7747 568587

Main Office: LIFT SYSTEMS 216 40th St (61265) P.O. Box 906 Moline, IL 61266-0906 USA Phone: +1 (309) 764-9842 Fax: +1 (309) 764-9848 E-Mail: liftit@lift-systems.com Web: www.lift-systems.com International Sales: INKRA GmbH / KRAH GmbH Richard-Strauss-Str. 31 D-74629 Pfedelbach Germany Phone: +49 (0) 7941-8325 Fax: +49 (0) 7941-37994 E-Mail: krah@lift-systems.de Web: www.lift-systems.de
Telephone Number +44 (0) 1226 785588 Fax Number +44 (0) 1226 785577 davidsymon@niggplant.com
www.niggplant.com
Nieuwenhuysen-Universeel B.V.
Supply of spareparts for axles, gearboxes and transmissions. Repairs of above units in our workshop equipped with testing facility.
RAIL BEAMS
MARKETPLACE
Used Cranes, Equipment,Spares and Repairs
The substitute for concrete sleepers for tower cranes

Nieuwenhuysen-Universeel B.V. Giessenweg 28, 3044 AL Rotterdam Phone : +31(0)10 415 98 22 Fax : +31(0)10 415 28 22 Internet : www.Cranepart.nl
www.cranesmarketplace.com
Contact: JanHartog@Cranepart.nl Gerardruhl@Cranepart.nl
www.tradehouse.dk
Tel: +45 3966 1866 Email: info@tradehouse.dk
Please contact Martin McCarthy: mmccarthy@wilmington.co.uk
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APRIL 2008
CRANES TODA Y
The Market Place

Your number one distributor Your first choice for used Liebherr, Peiner and Potain tower cranes
MTI-LUX S.A.
2a, Rue Prince Henri L-6735 Grevenmacher Luxemburg Tel. +352 / 267 454 80 Fax +352 / 267 454 83 MTILUX@aol.com MTILUX@pt.lu
www.mti-lux.com
HAC Cranes GmbH & Co. KG
Excellent service for our customers. From crane inspection to after sales service. For maintenance, repairs and spare parts supplies.
Model
DEMAG AC 25 LIEBHERR LTM 1030-1 LIEBHERR LTM 1030-2 KRUPP KMK 3045 TEREX HC110 LIEBHERR LTM 1120 LIEBHERR LTM 1120-1 LIEBHERR LTM 1160 KRUPP KMK 6180 KRUPP KMK 6200 AMERICAN HC275 DEMAG AC 300 DEMAG AC 400 DEMAG AC 500-1
STOCKLIST
Ton
25to 30to 30to 45to 110to 120to 140to 160to 180to 200to 250to 300to 400to 500to
Year
1997 1997 2000 1990 2008 1994 1997 1987 1995 1992 2007 2000 2000 2001
MD-265-1995 K30-30C-1995 MD-208-2004 MD-175-1996 MD-125-2001 F3-29-1990 646-G 643-J

Tel: 972-97499300 Fax: 972-9-7499356 Mob: 972-52-2455132 Email: ganon@comasco.co.il www.comasco.co.il
Lindhooper Str. 54, 27283 Verden, Germany T: +49 4231 933 489 F: +49 4231 961 657 E: hac@hac-germany.com W: www.hac-cranes.com W: wwww.hac-commerz.com
MORE CRANES AVAILABLE ON REQUEST CONTACT: GUDRUN STEER
SALES OF USED CRANES AND AFTER SALES SERVICE WORLDWIDE

Buy used cranes online www.cranestodaymagazine.com and click on used cranes CRANES TODA Y APRIL 2008
Lift your image!

57
The Market Place

BEST PARTS & MACHINERY YOUR NUMBER ONE SUPPLIER OF CRANES, CRANE PARTS AND MAINTENANCE
Best Parts & Machinery B.V. De Gorzen 4 4731 TV Oudenbosch The Netherlands
At Best Parts we combine an experienced sales and engineering staff with an excellent customized manufacturing facility, quality workmanship and a readily available supply of spare parts to assist you in any way. Best Parts & Machinery is official supplier for:
TEREX, P&H, AMERICAN CRANE, SUMITOMO-HITACHI, MANITOWOC, AND LINK-BELT PARTS Biggest parts stock in Europe, AMERICAN, SUMITOMO, LINK-BELT, MANITOWOC
Tel.: +31(0) 165 33 22 22 Fax: +31(0) 165 33 11 20 E-mail: info@bestparts.nl www.bestparts.nl
MICHIELSENS TRADING NV Bisschoppenhoflaan 275 Tel: +32 3 324 40 00 2100 Deurne Belgium (Europe) Fax: +32 3 888 42 22 Email: trading@cranes4u.com Web: www.cranes4u.com
OFFERS EXCELLENT USED AND NEW CRANES 4T-250T BEST QUALITY, EXCELLENT AFTER SERVICE and DELIVERY OF SPARE PARTS
NEW XCMG CRANES

CE-tested + Mercedes Engine
Michielsens quality proofed GROVE GROVE INDUSTRIAL 24 4T GROVE GMK6250 250 T GALION GALION 150A 15 T LIEBHERR LIEBHERR LTM1025 LIEBHERR LTM1040 LIEBHERR LTM 1060/2 LIEBHERR LTM1070 TADANO TADANO TR300EX KRUPP KRUPP KMK4080 XCMG QY25K5 QY50K 25 T 40 T 60 T 70 T 30 T 80 T 25 T 50 T
GROVE GMK 6250 NEW: QY25K5
Upstate Crane Parts - Supplying Crane Parts World-Wide!

7021 Performance Drive, North Syracuse, New York 13212 - USA
Contact our PARTS DEPARTMENT Today

Domestic Parts Sales Email: domestic.craneparts@empirecrane.com International Parts Sales Email: international.craneparts@empirecrane.com
Phone: (315) 458-4101 or (315) 701-4933 | Fax: (315) 458-3169 or (315) 701-4934
Crane Parts: All Makes, All Models
**Be sure to include your Model & Serial Number with your part number.
TEREX T560-1 TEREX RT230-1 KRUPP KMK 4080
Terex T560-1 AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY
7021 Performance Dr., Syracuse, NY 13212 Syracuse Office: Phone 315-458-4101
www.empirecrane.com
TOLLFREE: 1-800-342-7575
Fax: 315-458-3169
Terex RT230-1 AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY
Email: sales@empirecrane.com
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APRIL 2008
CRANES TODA Y
The Market Place

HITACHI SUMITOMO 1500-2 150 TONNE CRAWLER CRANE
SEE THIS CRANE AT SED 2008 STAND 620
75 METRE BOOM & SHORT JIB 28 METRE FLY JIB 20t WINCHES LINE SPEED: 110mpm WORLD STANDARD TOTAL MOMENT LIMITER MITSUBISHI 6D24 ENGINE
Hitachi Sumitomo Crawler Crane UK Distributors

For further information: NRC PLANT LTD Neagron House Stanford Road Orsett RM16 3BX United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1375 361616 Fax: +44 (0)1375 361818 email: sales@nrcplant.co.uk web: nrcplant.co.uk
90 110 112 154 154 280 SK SK SK
LIEBHERR EC EC-B 6 FR EC-H 8 EC-H 6 EC-H 6 EC-H12 PEINER 186/1 315 415
1991 2006 1993 1994 2000 2002 1995 1998 2001
Visit our Website for more details and additional offers.
Tel: (+49) 62 21 82 81 80 Fax: (+49) 62 21 83 12 04 www.wetzelcranes.de info@wetzelcranes.de
CRANES TODA Y
APRIL 2008
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The Market Place

USED CRANES AND CRANE HIRE GUIDE
All Terrain Cranes Ace Crane + Engineering Ltd T: 01474 321721 F: 01474 321821 E: Sales@ace.prestel.co.uk W: www.acecranehire.co.uk Bigge Crane & Rigging Co. T: 510-638-8100 F: 510-639-4053 E: ct@Bigge.com W: www.bigge.com BMS A/S T: (+45) 44949048 F: (+45) 44943760 E: info@bms.dk W: www.bms.dk Heinrich Schacke GmbH & Co.KG T: +49 (0) 203 / 99 52 90 F: +49 (0) 203 / 58 60 58 E: info@schacke.de W: www.schacke.de Hellmich Kranservice T: 0049 6158 1001 F: 0049 6158 6929 E: info@hellmich-kranservice.de W: www.hellmich-kranservice.de KMS GmbH & Co. Handels-KG T: 0049 2595 386980 F: 0049 2595 3869888 E: mail@kms-cranes.com W: www.kms-cranes.com M. Stemick GmbH T: 0049 2364 108203 F: 0049 2364 15546 E: info@stemick-krane.de W: www.stemick-krane.de TAT HONG HeavyEquipment T: +65 6269 0022 F: +65 6367 1917 E: lewis@tathong.com.sg W: www.tathong.com Vema Cranes T: 0031 162 68 1050 F: 0031 162 68 6262 E: sales@vemacrane.com W: www.vemacrane.com Crawler Cranes Bigge Crane & Rigging Co. T: 510-638-8100 F: 510-639-4053 E:ct@Bigge.com W: www.bigge.com BMS A/S T: (+45) 44949048 F: (+45) 44943760 E: info@bms.dk W: www.bms.dk Cranebusiness BV Logicrane Fushun T: +31 168 381 575 F: +31 168 381 576 E: info@cranebusiness.com W: www.cranebusiness.com Heinrich Schacke GmbH & Co.KG T: +49 (0) 203 / 99 52 90 F: +49 (0) 203 / 58 60 58 E: info@schacke.de W: www.schacke.de Hellmich Kranservice T: 0049 6158 1001 F: 0049 6158 6929 E: info@hellmich-kranservice.de W: www.hellmich-kranservice.de House of Equipment T: + 971 4 8803079 F: + 971 4 8803078 E: info@hoeuae.ae W: www.hoeuae.ae Crawler Cranes (continued) Mammoet Trading T: +31 10 204 25 85 / 204 2637 F: +31 10 204 24 42 E: mammoet.trading@mammoet.com W: www.mammoettrading.com NRC Plant Ltd T: 01375 361616 F: 01375 361818 E: sales@nrcplant.co.uk W:www.nrcplant.co.uk Promech Resources Co. Ltd T: 00(662) 7171406-7 F: 00(662) 7171408 E: sales@promechresources.com or mtwi@ksc.th.com W: www.promechresources.com TAT HONG HeavyEquipment T: +65 6269 0022 F: +65 6367 1917 E: lewis@tathong.com.sg W: www.tathong.com Vema Cranes T: 0031 162 68 1050 F: 0031 162 68 6262 E: sales@vemacrane.com W: www.vemacrane.com Dockside Cranes Grove Worldwide T: 0191 522 2000 F: 0191 522 2051 E: jcantle@groveworldwide.com W: www.groveworldwide.com Heinrich Schacke GmbH & Co.KG T: +49 (0) 203 / 99 52 90 F: +49 (0) 203 / 58 60 58 E: info@schacke.de W: www.schacke.de Gantry Cranes Bigge Crane & Rigging Co. T: 510-638-8100 F: 510-639-4053 E: ct@Bigge.com W: www.bigge.com Heinrich Schacke GmbH & Co.KG T: +49 (0) 203 / 99 52 90 F: +49 (0) 203 / 58 60 58 E: info@schacke.de W: www.schacke.de Heavy Crawler Cranes Sarens UK Limited (Middlesbrough) Cranes up to 1200 Tonne T: +44 (0)1642 621621 F: +44 (0)1642 621620 E: info@sarens.co.uk Heavy Strut Jib Cranes Sarens UK Limited (Middlesbrough) Cranes up to 2000 Tonne T: +44 (0)1642 621621 F: +44 (0)1642 621620 E: info@sarens.co.uk Heavy Telescopic Cranes Sarens UK Limited (Middlesbrough) Cranes up to 1000 Tonne T: +44 (0)1642 621621 F: +44 (0)1642 621620 E: info@sarens.co.uk Hooks and Slings Gunnebo Industrier AB T: 0046 220 384 00 F: 0046 220 384 98 E: export@gunnebolifting.com W: www.gunnebolifting.com Hydraulic Cranes Mammoet Trading T: +31 10 204 25 85 / 204 2637 F: +31 10 204 24 42 E: mammoet.trading@mammoet.com W: www.mammoettrading.com Hydraulic Lifting Gantries Bigge Crane & Rigging Co. T: 510-638-8100 F: 510-639-4053 E: ct@Bigge.com W: www.bigge.com
Tel: +44 (0)20 8269 7848 Email: mmcarthy@wilmington.co.uk

Rough Terrain (continued) TAT HONG HeavyEquipment T: +65 6269 0022 F: +65 6367 1917 E: lewis@tathong.com.sg W: www.tathong.com Tower Cranes Bigge Crane & Rigging Co. T: 510-638-8100 F: 510-639-4053 E: ct@Bigge.com W: www.bigge.com House of Equipment T: + 971 4 8803079 F: + 971 4 8803078 E: info@hoeuae.ae W: www.hoeuae.ae Tower Cranes (Luffing Jib) Machine Trading International T: 00352 2674 5480 F: 00352 2674 5483 E: Mtilux@aol.com W: www.mtilux.com Tradehouse T: 0045 39661866 F: 0045 40253696 E: lohmann@tradehouse.dk Tower Cranes (Saddle Jib) Kranen Bouw T: +31 (0)497 551100 F: +31 (0)497 573674 E: info@kranenbouw.com Machine Trading International T: 00352 2674 5480 F: 00352 2674 5483 E: Mtilux@aol.com W: www.mtilux.com Pieces Services Grues T: + 33 (0) 297 48 00 00 F: + 33 (0) 297 48 04 10 E: export@tower-crane-spare-parts.com Promech Resources Co. Ltd T: 00(662) 7171406-7 F: 00(662) 7171408 E: sales@promechresources.com or mtwi@ksc.th.com W: www.promechresources.com RGB T: 0049 (0)4222 400705 F: 0049 (0)4222 947888 E: rgb.geisler@t-online.de Saudem T: +33 1 48 52 80 00 F: +33 1 48 92 02 01 E: SAUDEM@wanadoo.fr W: www.saudem.com Stafford Tower Cranes Sales: Comansa, Liebherr,Peiner, Wolff etc. T: 00 353 1 810 7752 F: 00 353 1 810 7706 E: derek@towercranes.ie W: www.towercranes.ie Stafford Tower Cranes Hire: Comansa, Liebherr, Peiner, Wolff etc. T: 00 353 1 810 7752 F: 00 353 1 810 7706 E: win@towercranes.ie W: www.towercranes.ie Tower Cranes (Self Erecting) Ladybird Crane Hire T: 01527 889889 F: 01527 889879 E: hire@ladybirdcranehire.co.uk or info@ladybirdcranehire.co.uk W: www.ladybirdcranehire.co.uk Tower Cranes (Self Erecting) (continued)
Hydraulic Lifting Gantries (continued) Krah GmbH T: 0049-7941-8325 F: 0049-7941-37994 E: krah@Lift-systems.de W: www.Lift-systems.de Level Luffing Slewing Cranes Heinrich Schacke GmbH & Co.KG T: +49 (0) 203 / 99 52 90 F: +49 (0) 203 / 58 60 58 E: info@schacke.de W: www.schacke.de Light/Heavy Equipment Rental The Paramount Transport & Trading Co. Ltd T: +1 868 653 3802/3 F: +1 868 652 8030 E: ptt2@tstt.net.tt W: www.paramounttransport.com Mobile Cranes A Soulis Enterprises T: +357 24 64 24 30 F: +357 24 64 24 42 E: asoulis@spidernet.com.cy W: www.soulis-cranes.com.cy Grove Worldwide T: 0191 522 2000 F: 0191 522 2051 E: jcantle@groveworldwide.com W: www.groveworldwide.com Heinrich Schacke GmbH & Co.KG T: +49 (0) 203 / 99 52 90 F: +49 (0) 203 / 58 60 58 E: info@schacke.de W: www.schacke.de House of Equipment T: + 971 4 8803079 F: + 971 4 8803078 E: info@hoeuae.ae W: www.hoeuae.ae M. Stemick GmbH T: 0049 2364 108203 F: 0049 2364 15546 E: info@stemick-krane.de W: www.stemick-krane.de Sarilar T: 0090 262 641 3868 F: 0090 262 641 1301 E: info@sarilar.com.tr W: www.sarilar.com.tr TAT HONG HeavyEquipment T: +65 6269 0022 F: +65 6367 1917 E: lewis@tathong.com.sg W: www.tathong.com Radio Remote Controls Cavotec T: 0046 8556 5220 F: 0046 8556 52219 E: lars.hellman@cavotec.com W: www.alfab.se Rough Terrain Bigge Crane & Rigging Co. T: 510-638-8100 F: 510-639-4053 E: ct@Bigge.com W: www.bigge.com Heinrich Schacke GmbH & Co.KG T: +49 (0) 203 / 99 52 90 F: +49 (0) 203 / 58 60 58 E: info@schacke.de W: www.schacke.de M. Stemick GmbH T: 0049 2364 108203 F: 0049 2364 15546 E: info@stemick-krane.de W: www.stemick-krane.de
Machine Trading International T: 00352 2674 5480 F: 00352 2674 5483 E: Mtilux@aol.com W: www.mtilux.com
Mantis Cranes T: +353 74 914 9981 F: +353 74 914 9932 UK DEPOT T: Lo-call 0845 309 8158 F: +44 1388 748962 W: www.mantiscranes.ie RGB T: 0049 (0)4222 400705 F: 0049 (0)4222 947888 E: rgb.geisler@t-online.de Tradehouse T: 0045 39661866 F: 0045 40253696 E: lohmann@tradehouse.dk Tower Cranes (Spare Parts) Pieces Services Grues T: + 33 (0) 297 48 00 00 F: + 33 (0) 297 48 04 10 E: export@tower-crane-spare-parts.com Saudem T: +33 1 48 52 80 00 F: +33 1 48 92 02 01 E: SAUDEM@wanadoo.fr W: www.saudem.com Stafford Tower Cranes Spare Parts: Liebherr, Comansa, Peiner, Wolff etc. T: 00 353 1 810 7752 F: 00 353 1 810 7706 E: info@towercranes.ie W: www.towercranes.ie Transport Equipment Bigge Crane & Rigging Co. T: 510-638-8100 F: 510-639-4053 E: ct@Bigge.com W: www.bigge.com Mammoet Trading T: +31 10 204 25 85 / 204 2637 F: +31 10 204 24 42 E: mammoet.trading@mammoet.com W: www.mammoettrading.com Truck Cranes TAT HONG HeavyEquipment T: +65 6269 0022 F: +65 6367 1917 E: lewis@tathong.com.sg W: www.tathong.com Truck Cranes (Lattice Boom) Bigge Crane & Rigging Co. T: 510-638-8100 F: 510-639-4053 E:ct@Bigge.com W: www.bigge.com Heinrich Schacke GmbH & Co.KG T: +49 (0) 203 / 99 52 90 F: +49 (0) 203 / 58 60 58 E: info@schacke.de W: www.schacke.de M. Stemick GmbH T: 0049 2364 108203 F: 0049 2364 15546 E: info@stemick-krane.de W: www.stemick-krane.de Promech Resources Co. Ltd T: 00(662) 7171406-7 F: 00(662) 7171408 E: sales@promechresources.com or mtwi@ksc.th.com W: www.promechresources.com Truck Cranes (Telescopic) Bigge Crane & Rigging Co. T: 510-638-8100 F: 510-639-4053 E:ct@Bigge.com W: www.bigge.com
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APRIL 2008
CRANES TODA Y
The Market Place

Worldwide specialists in heavy lifting and transport
Cranes for sale
Liebherr LTM 1300 Cap. 300 ton
Faun RTF 40-3 Cap. 40 ton
Grove GMK 4075 Cap. 75 ton
Faun ATF 70-4 Cap. 70 ton
Demag AC 155 Cap. 50 ton
Cranes
REF NR 1598 1597 1407 711 650 MANUFACTURER Faun Demag Faun Grove Liebherr TYPE RTF 40-3 AC 155 ATF 70-4 GMK 4075 LTM 1300 YOM 1995 1993 1996 2001 1999 MAINBOOM 30 Mtr 40 Mtr 40,5 Mtr 43,2 Mtr 60 Mtr JIB 16 Mtr 17 Mtr 42 / 70 Mtr CAP. 50 70 75 300 REMARKS 13 more units available Available this year, 2008 Directly Available 10 more units available Available September 2008 8,7 + 6,75 Mtr 40
Contact persons
Jan van Seumeren Jr. / Miranda Verhoef Phone +31 (0)10 204 25 85 / 204 26 37 Fax +31 (0)10 204 24 42 E-mail mammoet.trading@mammoet.com
www.mammoettrading.com
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Coolowen, Blarney, Co. Cork, Ireland info@rivertekservices.com www.rivertekservices.com Telephone: (021) 4385342 or (021) 4381314 Fax: (021) 4381504
(From UK & N. Ireland please call 00 353 21 4385342 or 00 353 21 4381314)

HYDRAULIC CRAWLER
NEW HITACHI SUMITOMO 80 Ton Crawler Crane
2007 IHI CCH700, 70 Ton
2005 HITACHI SUMITOMO SCX400, 40 Ton
1994 SUMITOMO SC500-2
1994 SUMITOMO SC500-2
1996 HITACHI 35 Ton Crawler Crane
1999 & 1998 KOMATSU 5 Ton
MINI-TELESCOPIC CRAWLER
CITY CRANES/ROUGH TERRAIN
NEW HITACHI ZAXIS 160LCT
1997 HITACHI EX60LCT
2002 KATO 25 TON
2001 KATO 25 Ton
1997 KATO 25 Ton
2001 KATO 10 Ton
NEW KATO SR200R, 20 Ton
TRUCK CRANES
TELESCOPIC CRAWLER
1996 KATO 30 Ton
1995 KATO 30 Ton
1998 KATO 25 Ton
1992 KATO 25 Ton
1994 KATO 25 Ton
1999 IHI CCH500T
2001 KOBELCO TK550, 55 Ton
Everything is in stock and available for immediate delivery.

ALL CRANES ARE SUPPLIED WITH: NEW TEST CERTIFICATES FULLY SERVICED & CE MARKED CRANE PARTS: EXTENSIVE RANGE OF GENUINE NEW & USED JAPANESE CRANE SPARE PARTS IN STOCK, including Engines, Gearboxes, Slew Rings, Transmissions etc... call for details
UK CUSTOMERS WHY NOT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE STRONG STERLING / WEAK EURO EXCHANGE RATE VAT ZERO RATED FOR EXPORT WE CAN SHIP TO MOST WORLDWIDE DESTINATIONS
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APRIL 2008
CRANES TODA Y
The Market Place
Belgium
The Netherlands
France
VAN DER SPEK GROUP YOUR BEST CRANE PARTNER !
CRANES
including: K, KR, H, HM, TT, TTR, EC, EC-H, EC-B, HC and models from 110 to 630t/m.
All part of our extensive rental fleet !
AVAILABLE FOR SALE and/or RENTAL TO END USERS OR RENTAL COMPANIES WORLDWIDE
CALL US NOW !
VAN DER SPEK B TERNAT - Tel: +32 2 582 29 79 - Fax: +32 2 582 70 36 Contact: John G. A. GALOY Email: j.galoy@online.be www.vanderspek-bel.com
Buy used cranes online www.cranestodaymagazine.com and click on used cranes CRANES TODA Y APRIL 2008
63
With many years experience in the crawler crane industry, the Cranebusiness Company is focussing on the future by offering more practical, economical and advanced solutions to its customers. Cranebusiness is the EU distributor for Fushun Exc. Co. Ltd, and works closely with this high quality manufacturer of crawler cranes. As a result, there are a growing number of new, more modern cranes that comply fully with international standards and requirements. Proven relations with the Fushun factory, combined with an increasing number of customers, motivate us to work harder. It is our absolute intention to work internationally with Fushun and provide even more high quality and innovative products such as the LOGICRANE. Located in Moerdijk, the Netherlands, we offer unique advantages being close to the countrys main seaports and airports. We are proud to work with you, we are HOOKED ON CRANES.
Cranebusiness BV.
Apolloweg 144782 SB MOERDIJK The Netherlands T: F: E: W: +31 168 381575 +31 168 381576 info@cranebusiness.com www.cranebusiness.com
Fushun manufactures crawler cranes from 35 to 350 ton

Fushun Exc. Co. Ltds roots lie in Chinas industrial northeast. For over 100 years Fushun has contributed to Chinas industrial development by manufacturing a host of heavy equipment. Since the 1980s Fushun has accumulated vast experience and currently leads the field in developing and manufacturing modern hydraulic crawler cranes. Large investment in human resources, and in an advanced industrial plant, has seen Fushun become a leading manufacturer of safe and reliable cranes to both the domestic, and international markets. An ever-growing network of reputable distributors offering even better quality products is seeing a strong relationship develop with the global customer base. We look at the world; THE SKY IS OUR LIMIT.
Fushun Excavator Corporation Ltd.

No. 2 Shuangyang Road Fushun, Liaoning 113126 CHINA T: F: E: W: +86 413 7642558 +86 413 7642766 export@cnfuwa.com www.cnfuwa.com
THE BACK PAGE

In our fleet:
PVE Cranes
Netherlands
Video: rocket man
We have 65 crawlers in the rental fleet, from 150t600t capacity. We focus on 250t, it seems to be a popular size. At the moment we only deal with lifting cranes. We are part of Van Es Holding, which consists of Dieseko, a manufacturer of PVE piling equipment, Jack-Up Barge, which has a rental fleet of jack up barges, and Worldwide Equipment, which rents marine equipment such as floating barges and tugboats. This unique group of companies all work together. If we get an enquiry for a crane, sometimes at the same time there is an enquiry for a barge, and it's our crane on the barge. The main line of our business is steel erection and marine work: port and bridge construction, LNG plant erection work. The Van Es Holding group has a yard and office each in Holland; Jacksonville, Florida; Trinidad; Dubai; Batam, Indonesia; and a storage facility in Singapore. The cranes move from place to place. We are still growing. By the end of the year, our target is to have 80 cranes. We try to work with the least number of people possible. Contractors need a complete engineering department. At this moment there is plenty of work, but when times get worse, for us it is simple to survive. We have the equipment, but not a large overhead. We have 20 people on the payroll, an operations manager, bookkeeping staff and two mechanics, at each location. We rent the cranes bare, without operator. If someone needs an operator, we can supply them, but they are not on the payroll. We are now focussing more and more on bigger cranes. We have ordered several 550t Kobelcos, and we are talking to other manufacturers about 750t crawler cranes. Because we focus on bare rental, it is difficult to go bigger. We do business all over the world. We do see a trend for euro contracts instead of dollar contracts, even in the USA, because of the weakness of the dollar. We were expecting resistance, but so far there have been no real problems. That may be because the crane shortage in the market is on our side. The Van Es group was established in 1974 by Paul Van Es with Dieseko. PVE Cranes & Services was established in 1999 in Florida and is majorityowned by Van Es Holdings. I think the large crane segment is still very good for the next 34 years, because it is oil and gas, energyOne of 13 PVE cranes, a Kobelco CKE related. 2500, helping to build a Portugese bridge Joost Boemer, director
US private space travel innovators Armadillo Aerospace have driven a 15 US t Pioneer boom truck, using a rocket: probably the first example of a rocket-powered crane. Joseph LaGrave, operator and driver of the crane, explains, "We use crane trucks for hover testing rockets under tether. We have the control issues of hovering rockets well in hand and are presently testing some new engine designs. Out of convenience we decided to use the back of the truck as a test stand as it permitted rapid testing. "Our typical load is four 230l Dewar flasks of liquid oxygen, four 55 gallon tanks of ethanol and 18 to 24 helium bottles for pressurisation. Prior to a test we place a stripped down rocket on the bed then plumb and wire it to the test motor mounted on the back of the truck. We then fill the tanks from the Dewar flasks and tanks and pressurise. "Normally everyone retreats a safe distance, the test is conducted and we refill to test several times in one day. As we are somewhat unorthodox in our approach to rocketry it was inevitable that we would push the crane truck around with the rocket motor. On this past Saturday the total weight of the truck as loaded was 54,000lb when we decided to make a short run with the brakes off. The test was only 10 seconds in duration." Check out the video on Cranes Today's new video news page, www.cranestodaymagazine.com/video, to see the rocket crane in action.
In praise of the EN 13000 changes

The new crane safety systemsLMIsbased on EN 13000 will forever improve safety when working with mobile cranes. There are three major reasons why we have accidents when operating mobile cranes: the operator is turning the key to the LMI; unsafe ground conditions or insufficient outrigger support; incorrect rigging or incorrect use of rigging equipment. The new LMI will eliminate one third of the above reasons for accidents! I believe that the new LMI based on EN 13000 is an intelligent and necessary step forward improving crane safety and taking a lot of pressure off crane operators who oftenfor a lot of reasonsfeel forced to turn the key. The new LMI will eliminate this bad habit. Crane owners will have to be very accurate when calculating the size of a crane needed for a particular job and when calculating the load, remembering always to add the weight of hook blocks, lifting tackle, yokes and the like. Many people still forget this. Customers too will have to realise that once the safety limit of the crane has been reached, then that is it, the only possibility is either moving the crane closer or employing a bigger crane. Implementing change is the most difficult task facing any manager, and the new LMIs will force most of us to implement changes. But the truck and the automobile industry is rapidly moving forward every year installing new intelligent safety devices and the crane industry - owners, operators and customers - must do the same. Sren Jansen, Managing director, BMS Rdovre, Denmark
Three 200t-class crawler cranes have launched in the past 18 months, but reception to them varies greatly, if results of our February poll are representative of the industry as a whole. The new Link-Belt 298 HSL scored highest with almost half the vote (and 109 responses); others fared less well (Total sample: 236). Next month we ask which of the crane manufacturers had the best stand at ConExpo.
Link-Belt 298 HSL Manitowoc Model 14000 Terex-American HC 230 Kobelco CK2500-II None of the above 46% 25% 11% 4% 14%
Poll: New Link-Belt is the pick of the pack
Quote of the month

Over the years Cranes Today has been the Bible of the crane industry"
Tom Martin, Sparrows Offshore Services, Angola,West Africa, p26-7
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Head-office - BELGIUM - T +32 (0)11 450 950 - mail: arcomet@arcomet.com -
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Editors view News

Deals in Australia, the USA and EuropeAccidents in the USA

Highlights from this years big construction show, in Las Vegas

USA Global insight Homebuilders feel the crunch 400th issue

Alternative lifting Singapore flyer

Australias big wheel

Hoist keeps form levels The Back Page

Is demand costing lives?

Will North Assistant editor

To request a regular copy, go to:

Some of our other products. See more on www.cranestodaymagazine.com/products

Cranes Today China

Website and email newsletter

Used crane sales

New York reels from collapse

Emergency workers at the aftermath of the accident

The three collapsed collars, which contributed to the accident

The fallen mast of the crane

A beam was sent crashing into a nearby kitchen

CRANES TODAY APRIL 2007

PICK and CARRY

Essex boss Ron Schad

Ready for action

ConExpo draws 140,000 visitors

Manitowoc: Performing near you

Jobs and deals

CRANES TODAY APRIL 2008

US giants look to emerging markets

CRANES TODAY APRIL 2008

Making the best even better!

PALFINGER AG 5101 Bergheim/Salzburg, Austria E-Mail info@palnger.com www.palnger.com

Rising to new heights!

1947 Quincy Court Glendale Heights, IL 60139 630.893.3888 www.alpswirerope.com

US construction forecast: short-term bad news

Offices and hotels

CRANES TODAY APRIL 2008

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As corporate profits weaken, so does spending on office buildings.

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Investment in commercial structures will decline (in billions of USD).

CRANES TODAY APRIL 2008

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Utilities 2010 2013 2016

Investment in industrial structures seems to go in cycles (in billions of USD).

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Fassi innovation takes to the field with Champions

F.C. Internazionale Ofcial Supplier

Genoa C.F.C. Ofcial Supplier

2007 World and European Champions

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